A federal district judge ruled on Friday that the death penalty could not be sought by prosecutors in the case of Luigi Mangione.
Mangione faces charges in the federal case and two state cases — one in New York and one in Pennsylvania — for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. He could face life sentences without parole in both cases. The death penalty is abolished in New York state law.
The Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said in her ruling that the federal government did not have the requirements needed in their evidence to prove the charges against Mangione were enough to seek capital punishment.
For a defendant to be eligible for the death penalty in a federal case, the prosecution must prove one qualifying “crime of violence” in addition to the murder charges. In this case, the U.S. attorneys filed stalking charges in support of their murder charge against Mangione.
Federal prosecutors in the case have previously said that Mangione was an “exceptionally dangerous” person who “hunted Thompson down,” per Courthouse News Service, arguing that he had spent time planning out the death of Thompson and stalked him for days before allegedly carrying out the killing.
Mangione is facing four charges in the federal case:
- One count of using a firearm to commit murder.
- One count of interstate stalking resulting in death.
- One count of stalking through the use of interstate facilities resulting in death.
- One charge of discharging a firearm with a silencer during the commission of a violent crime.
All charges could result in life in prison; the charge of using a firearm to commit murder was the prosecution’s tool in seeking the death penalty, supported by the two stalking charges. The defense previously argued that the two counts were not “crimes of violence,” which Garnett sided with in her ruling.
“The analysis contained in the balance of this Opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law,” Garnett said in her ruling. “But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case.”
She also ruled that the defense could use evidence obtained in Mangione’s backpack that was recovered by law enforcement when he was arrested at a McDonald’s just five days after Thompson’s murder.
Jury selection for the upcoming federal trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8, with opening statements set for Oct. 13.
Man tries to break Mangione out of jail
The update in Mangione’s federal case comes days after a man attempted to free him from a New York jail.
On Wednesday, a man named Mark Anderson entered the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Mangione is being held, posed as an FBI agent and said he was “in possession of paperwork ‘signed by a Judge’ authorizing the release of a specific inmate who was in custody at the MDC,” according to CBS News.
When asked for his credentials, Anderson apparently handed over a Minnesota driver’s license and then said he was in possession of weapons. He also “displayed and threw” multiple documents at the officers, per USA Today.
His bag was then searched by law enforcement, where what appeared to be a pizza cutter and a barbecue fork were uncovered.
Anderson had reportedly moved to New York from Minnesota and was working at a pizzeria at the time of arrest.
According to Fox News, Anderson was charged with impersonating a federal agent, a crime that, if he is found guilty, could result in up to three years in prison.