Capital punishment will no longer be pursued in the case against Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing a healthcare CEO. Manhattan federal prosecutors said on Friday that they won't challenge a judge's decision to remove the death penalty from the case against the 27-year-old Ivy League graduate.
In a letter, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said it will stand by Judge Margarett Garnett's January 30 ruling, which threw out the death-penalty-eligible murder charge after finding legal problems with it. The 27-year-old suspect could still spend the rest of his life behind bars if he's convicted at his trial, set to begin in September.
Still No Respite
Prosecutors say he carried out a targeted shooting that killed Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on a Midtown sidewalk on December 4, 2024. That said, Mangione won't formally face a murder charge in the federal case.
Instead, prosecutors are pursuing a stalking charge, arguing that his actions led directly to Thompson's death, leaving behind a wife and two children.
Mangione is also staring down the possibility of life behind bars in a separate state murder trial scheduled for June. The Maryland native has pleaded not guilty in the killing of Brian Thompson.
In her ruling, Garnett explained that, to pursue the death penalty, prosecutors first had to prove Mangione killed Thompson while carrying out another "crime of violence" — a legal standard she said was not met in this case.
More Charges
Federal prosecutors also charged Mangione with "stalking" the health insurance executive, but the judge found that stalking does not qualify as a "crime of violence" under the law.
Garnett acknowledged that her decision might feel "tortured and strange" to the average person. Still, she emphasized that the court's responsibility isn't to react emotionally, but to apply the law as written, adding that "the law must be the court's only concern."
That said, Mangione has reportedly been planning to kill Thompson as early as August 2024, and finally succeeded in December that year. Investigators found a notebook filled with hostile rants against the insurance industry, which they believe belongs to him.
In an entry from August 15, Mangione reportedly wrote, "the details are finally coming together," expressing he "was glad" that his delays had "allowed him to learn more" about UnitedHealthcare, the insurance giant Thompson headed.
"The target is insurance," he allegedly wrote, adding that UnitedHealthcare "checks every box."
