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The death penalty is off the table for Luigi Mangione after a New York federal judge dismissed the charges that were eligible for capital punishment in the case accusing him of killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York in December 2024.
In a written court order on Friday, US district judge Margaret Garnett dismissed counts three and four against Mangione, including murder through use of a firearm, which carried a potential death sentence, and a weapons charge.
She said she felt constrained by US supreme court precedents to dismiss the murder charges, saying they were legally “incompatible” with the two stalking charges the defendant still faces.
Mangione, 27, has previously pleaded not guilty to murder, weapons and stalking-related charges in the federal case. He still faces two federal stalking counts.
“This case will proceed to trial on Counts One and Two, which charge the Defendant with causing Brian Thompson’s death under two federal stalking laws,” Garnett wrote in the order dated Friday. “The potential maximum punishment for each of those offenses is life in prison without parole.”
“Count three is a capital-eligible offense, on which the Government filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty,” Garnett added. “Consequently, the chief practical effect of the legal infirmities of Counts Three and Four, and this court’s decision that they must be dismissed, is solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury that will otherwise determine, at trial, whether to convict the defendant for causing Brian Thompson’s death.”
Mangione’s lawyers had asked the judge in October to dismiss some of the charges in the case, including the only count on which he could be eligible for the death penalty.
Prosecutors have not yet announced if they will appeal Friday’s ruling.
In a 39-page decision, Garnett said federal prosecutors could pursue their murder and weapons charges only if the stalking charges qualified as “crimes of violence”.
She said the charges did not qualify because any use of force could be achieved through “reckless”, as opposed to intentional, conduct.
The judge said prosecutors and Mangione agreed that this fell short of the kind of “force” the supreme court required to make out a crime of violence.
Garnett acknowledged the “apparent absurdity” of the legal landscape, saying no one would seriously question that Mangione’s alleged conduct – crossing state lines to kill a specific healthcare executive with a handgun equipped with a silencer – was violent criminal conduct.
Separately, Mangione has also pleaded not guilty to murder, weapons and forgery-related charges in Manhattan state court.
He is accused of shooting Thompson dead after approaching him on the street in Manhattan as the executive was attending an event.
On Friday morning, the judge also rejected a defense motion to suppress evidence related to the case, including Mangione’s backpack that was recovered from him at the time of arrest, and its contents, including a gun that prosecutors allege Mangione used to kill Thompson.
Mangione’s attorneys had argued that Mangione was not immediately apprised of his constitutional rights.
Mangione is due back in court later on Friday morning for a conference in the case. Earlier this month, the judge said that the federal trial is scheduled to start with jury selection on 8 September.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting
