A federal judge ruled Friday that prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty in the trial of Luigi Mangione, who is accused of the 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in New York dismissed the federal murder charge, saying it was technically flawed, according to The Associated Press. The charge carried the possibility of the death penalty. All other charges Mangione faces, including stalking, which could lead to life in prison, remain.
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Garnett wrote that she dismissed the murder charge “solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment.”
Mangione, 27, pleaded not guilty to all charges relating to Thompson’s killing. Jury selection for the federal trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. No trial date has been set for the state murder charge that Mangione faces, although the Manhattan district attorney’s office has asked the judge to schedule it for July 1.
Details of assassination
Prosecutors accused Mangione of stalking and shooting Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, outside an investors’ event run by UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare’s parent company.
Security cameras captured the shooting, showing a man casually walking behind Thompson before shooting him several times in the back. Authorities spent the next five days searching for the suspect before receiving a tip about a person inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Authorities arrested Mangione at the restaurant and said they found evidence linking him to the shooting. However, his lawyers are trying to exclude that evidence from the trial.
Mangione’s defense team argued that the arrest and aresulting warrantless search were invalid because officers failed to read him his rights. Items recovered during his arrest include the suspected murder weapon, ammunition and a journal which prosecutors described as a manifesto.
