U.S. District Judge Margaret has allowed prosecutors to introduce at trial evidence seized from the backpack Mangione was wearing when he was arrested.
A federal judge has ruled that prosecutors may not seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
On Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett of the Southern District of New York dismissed two of the four federal counts against Mangione, including one of murder through use of a firearm in relation to stalking and a separate count of using a firearm during stalking.
The former charge carried a potential death sentence, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had filed a notice of intent to seek the maximum penalty.
Instead, Mangione will face two remaining “fatal stalking” charges at trial: crossing state lines to stalk Thompson and cause his death, and using the internet to plan and carry out the killing. Each offense carries a maximum possible sentence of life in prison without parole.
Mangione, 27, was arrested days after he allegedly traveled across several states to gun down Thompson as the 50-year-old executive was walking into a conference on a busy Manhattan street on Dec. 4, 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to all four counts.
“No one could seriously question that this is violent criminal conduct,” Garnett wrote in her opinion. However, she said her analysis had to be “totally divorced from the conduct at issue” and instead focus on the legal standards.
Both now-dismissed charges required the government to show that the underlying federal stalking offense qualifies as a “crime of violence,” wrote Garnett, who concluded that prosecutors had not met that threshold.
For months leading up to the shooting, she noted, Mangione allegedly plotted Thompson’s killing, but Thompson himself was never placed “in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm” or in “emotional distress,” as the statute requires.
According to the government’s own account, Thompson was unaware of Mangione’s alleged actions until the fatal attack.
By Bill Pan
