US judge rules Mangione will not face death penalty

Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty after a US judge dismissed murder and weapons charges against the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, in a major blow to federal prosecutors.

⁠U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan said she felt compelled to dismiss the murder charge because of Supreme Court precedent and that it was legally incompatible with the two stalking charges Mangione still faces, while acknowledging that ordinary people might be stunned by the outcome.

Mangione, 27, still faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of stalking.

Federal prosecutor Dominic Gentile told Garnett at a routine hearing on Friday that the government had not decided whether to appeal.

Thompson, who ran UnitedHealth Group’s health insurance business, was shot and killed outside the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to any charges stemming from Thompson’s death and has been jailed since his arrest in Pennsylvania five days after the murder.

While public officials widely condemned Thompson’s killing, Mangione became something of a folk hero to those who decried the high costs of medical care and health insurance practices.

Garnett planned for jury selection in the case to begin in September, with the evidentiary phase of the trial to begin on October 12.

Mangione also pleaded not guilty in a New York state court in Manhattan to separate counts of murder, weapons and forgery.

No trial date has been set in this case.

Prosecutors in that case suffered their own defeat in September when the judge dismissed two terrorism-related charges against Mangione.

Garnett said in his 39-page ruling that federal prosecutors can pursue murder and weapons charges only if the stalking charges qualify as “crimes of violence.”

He said the charges are not valid because any use of force would be reckless as opposed to intentional conduct.

The judge said prosecutors and Mangione agreed it fell short of the type of “tough” the Supreme Court needed to consider a crime of violence.

Acknowledging the “apparent absurdity” of the legal environment, Garnett said no one would seriously question whether Mangione’s alleged conduct – crossing state lines to kill a particular health care executive with a gun equipped with a silencer – constituted a violent crime.

He said his analysis may seem “torturous and strange” to ordinary people and many lawyers and judges, but that it “represents the court’s determined effort to faithfully apply the Supreme Court’s instructions to the charges in this case.” “The court’s only concern should be the law.”

In a separate ruling, Garnett rejected Mangione’s motion to exclude evidence seized from his backpack when he was arrested.

Mangione argued that evidence found in the backpack, including a 9-millimeter handgun, silencer and diary entries, should have been suppressed because police obtained it without a search warrant.

The judge said it was standard practice for local police to search sealed bags that might contain reasonably dangerous objects and that police had probable cause to search.

He also said the contents would inevitably be discovered through a federal search warrant.