By MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Friday they won’t appeal a judge’s ruling that bars them from seeking the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
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Garnett last month dismissed a federal murder charge — murder through use of a firearm — that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it legally flawed.
She wrote that she did so to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury” when it weighs whether to convict Mangione in the December 2024 killing in Manhattan.
The judge, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, also threw out a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.
To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in a 39-page opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
The ruling disrupted the Trump administration’s bid to see Mangione executed for what U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.” It was the first capital case brought by the Justice Department in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty in the federal and state cases. The state charges also carry the possibility of life in prison. At a recent court hearing, he spoke out against the prospect of back-to-back trials, telling a judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later after he was spotted eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
His lawyers have argued that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle, including by having armed officers parade him up Manhattan pier after he was flown to New York, and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed even before he was formally indicted.
Jury selection in Mangione’s federal case is scheduled for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13. His state trial is scheduled to begin June 8, but the judge in that case, Gregory Carro, said it could have been pushed back until Sept. 8 if federal prosecutors appealed the death penalty ruling.
In her ruling, Garnett acknowledged that the decision “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.”
But, she said, it reflected her “committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case. The law must be the Court’s only concern.”
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