By Jack Queen and Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty after a U.S. judge on Friday dismissed murder and weapons charges against the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, in a major blow to federal prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan said she felt compelled by Supreme Court precedent to dismiss the murder charge, saying it was legally inconsistent with the two federal stalking charges Mangione still faces.
Mangione still faces murder charges in a separate case brought by state prosecutors.
Federal homicide laws carry different legal requirements than comparable state laws, and Garnett said federal law requires Mangione’s murder and weapons charges to be linked to another crime of violence.
Stalking, the judge said, did not meet this requirement because it was neither “inherently” violent nor always intentional. Garnett acknowledged that the average person might be surprised by the dismissal.
Mangione, 27, faces possible life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the further charges.
A federal prosecutor, Dominic Gentile, told Garnett at the court hearing that the government has not decided whether to appeal.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Mangione’s attorney, Karen Agnifilo, thanked Garnett for the “unbelievable” decision. Asked for Mangione’s reaction, she said, “We’re all relieved.”
Thompson, who led UnitedHealth Group’s health insurance business, was shot and killed outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan on December 4, 2024.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to all charges stemming from Thompson’s death, and has been jailed since his arrest in Pennsylvania five days after the murder.
While public officials widely condemned Thompson’s murder, Mangione became a sort of folk hero for many Americans who resent the high costs of medical care and health insurer practices.
Judge notes ‘tortured and strange’ legal analysis
Scott Sundby, a law professor at the University of Miami, said Garnett’s decision followed Supreme Court precedent intended to prevent federal prosecutors from using vague statutes to bring inappropriate violent crime charges.
“While the alleged manner in which Luigi did this strikes one as undeniably violent, that is not the question,” Sundby said. “The court’s concern is that prosecutors use a vaguely defined offense that gives them too much power,” Sundby said.
Garnett has scheduled jury selection to begin in September, with the trial set to begin on Oct. 12.
In his 39-page ruling, Garnett said federal prosecutors can only pursue the murder and weapons charges if they qualify as crimes of violence.
She said stalking doesn’t qualify because people can break the law without intentionally using force.
Garnett acknowledged the “obvious absurdity” of the legal landscape, saying no one seriously questions that Mangione’s alleged conduct — crossing state lines to kill a certain health care executive, and carrying a handgun equipped with a silencer — was violent criminal conduct.
She said her analysis may strike lay people and many lawyers and judges as “offensive and strange” and that the results “contrary to our intuitions about criminal law”.
But she said her decision “reflects the court’s committed efforts to faithfully implement the Supreme Court order in this case. The law should be the sole concern of the court.”
Evidence recovered from the backpack is admissible
In a separate ruling, Garnett denied a bid to exclude evidence seized from Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested.
Mangione argued that the evidence found in the backpack, including the 9-millimeter pistol, silencer and journal entries, should have been suppressed because police obtained it without a warrant.
The judge said it was standard practice for local police to search closed bags that may contain dangerous items, and the police had probable cause to conduct the search. She also said the material was found essentially through a federal search warrant.
Mangione also pleaded not guilty to separate murder, weapons and forgery charges in New York state court in Manhattan.
No trial date has been set in that case. Prosecutors in that case suffered their own setback in September, when a judge dismissed two terrorism-related counts against Mangione.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Burkrot)
