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Luigi Mangione escapes federal death penalty in CEO slaying

Judge rules that Luigi Mangione will not be sentenced to death

Fox News’ Nate Foy reports that the judge agreed to throw out the most serious charge against Luigi Mangione and denied the defense’s request to suppress some evidence. Legal editor Kerri Urbahn discusses the judge’s decisions.

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Luigi Mangione was spared the death penalty.

An accused murderer’s life will be spared after federal prosecutors said Friday they would not appeal a judge’s decision to vacate his death sentence.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District said in a letter that it agreed with U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett’s Jan. 30 decision to dismiss the capital murder charge against Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024.

Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty after federal prosecutors said Friday they would not appeal the judge’s decision to dismiss death penalty charges against the accused killer. (Curtis stands for DailyMail/Pool)

Although he has not been charged with murder, Mangione still faces two federal stalking charges.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin on September 8. Opening speeches will begin in October.

Mangione, 27, also faces life in prison in a separate murder case scheduled to begin in state court in June. He pleaded not guilty to Thompson’s murder.

Garnett said in his January ruling that prosecutors needed a violent crime to charge Mangione with a federal murder charge using a weapon.

P.POLICE SERGEANT LUIGI MANGIONE DENIES HEARD HIS MOTHER’S ALLEGED HEROIC STATEMENT ABOUT CEO’S KILLING

Photo of Brian Thompson was Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealthcare Unit until he was shot in New York City in December 2024.

This 2017 file photo of Brian Thompson was published via Businesswire when he was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare Unit in 2017. (Business connection)

Garnett wrote that he was adhering to Supreme Court precedent.

“Over the past two decades or so, the Supreme Court has embarked on a legal journey, as described here, that now requires lower courts to engage in an analysis that is entirely divorced from the conduct in question and focuses on the hypothetically least serious conduct that the charged crime could possibly encompass,” he wrote.

Security cameras recorded the murder. Video footage shows Thompson walking on a Manhattan sidewalk in front of a hotel when a gunman approaches him from behind and opens fire.