Prosecutors cannot pursue a death sentence against Luigi Mangione in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a federal judge ruled Friday, delivering a blow to prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed two of the four federal counts against Mangione: murder through use of a firearm, which carries a potential death sentence, and a related firearms offense.
Garnett left in place two federal stalking counts, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty.
Garnett ruled that the murder charge was technically flawed. It can be used only in tandem with a “crime of violence.” The prosecution argued that Mangione’s alleged stalking of Thompson met that standard. Garnett disagreed.
“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 wrote.
“But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case,” the federal judge added. "The law must be the Court’s only concern.”
In remarks outside the federal courthouse after Garnett entered her ruling into the record, one of Mangione’s attorneys hailed the “incredible decision.”
“We’re all very relieved,” Karen Agnifilo told reporters.
Mangione, 27, appeared in court for a brief pretrial hearing. In the hallways, his supporters could be heard cheering for a criminal defendant they view as a folk hero who took a stand against the for-profit health insurance industry.
He is accused of gunning down Thompson, 50, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel Dec. 4, 2024, as the father of two was heading to an early morning investor conference. The killing set off a frantic manhunt across the region.
Garnett also ruled that Mangione’s federal trial can feature evidence seized from the backpack he had when he was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9, 2024.
Authorities have said the backpack contained a ghost gun, fake IDs, a notebook and other writings detailing Mangione’s grievances against the private health care system in the United States.
Mangione’s lawyers pushed to bar that evidence from the trial, arguing in part that the arresting officers conducted an illegal search. The prosecution team has forcefully rebutted that contention.
“The search was reasonable under the facts of this case,” Garnett wrote in her decision Friday.
Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Mangione in April, marking the Justice Department’s first attempt to do so in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Bondi, calling Thompson’s death a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” framed the directive as part of Trump’s “agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
Thompson became chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in 2021, according to a company news release from the time.
Mangione faces nine counts in a separate case brought by New York state prosecutors, including second-degree murder and various weapons charges. He has pleaded not guilty in that case, too. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison.
New York does not have the death penalty at the state level after its capital punishment statute was declared unconstitutional in 2004.
Garnett’s pivotal rulings came a day after a 35-year-old Minnesota man was charged with impersonating an FBI agent in an apparent attempt to spring Mangione from federal lockup in Brooklyn in a bizarre episode detailed in court documents.
Authorities said Mark Anderson was arrested at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Wednesday. In his backpack, prison workers found a barbecue fork and a “round steel blade” that resembled a pizza cutter, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
