The Manhattan judge overseeing Luigi Mangione’s murder case set a summer start date for the state trial at a hearing on Friday, turning up the temperature on the showdown between state and federal courts over who gets a crack at the case first.
Mangione, who is accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the midtown Manhattan Hilton on Dec. 4, 2024, faces federal stalking charges — the lone counts left after U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett last week dismissed two death penalty-eligible charges — in addition to his state murder case.
Garnett said the federal trial would begin in September. Manhattan District Attorney prosecutors instigated a push to begin Mangione’s state trial even earlier.
Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro set a start date of June 8 for the state case, but said that he would push it back to Sept. 8 if the federal government is willing to do the same in order to give the state more time.
Carro on Friday alluded to the previous presumption that the state case would go first.
“It appears that the federal government has reneged on their agreement to allow the state to do most of the work on this case,” Carro said.
Referring to his September 2025 ruling slimming down Mangione’s state case, Carro said, “This case got simpler and that should be shorter. It’s no longer a terrorism case.”
Garnett meanwhile said last week that the timing of the state case “is none of my concern,” and that she would not coordinate the timing of the federal trial with state prosecutors unless they reached out to her directly.
On Friday, the back-and-forth between Mangione’s lawyers and Carro became strained as the defense attorneys said that, given the pre-trial motions and jury requirements for the federal case due this spring, they will not be ready for a June state trial.
“It’s obvious that Judge Garnett also wants the federal case to go first. I don’t need to hear about that,” Carro responded.
At the end of the conference Mangione made his own voice heard, echoing his lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo’s argument that the two cases fall under double jeopardy — a constitutional protection that would stop him from being prosecuted twice for the same offense.
As Mangione was led out of the courtroom by court officers, he boomed, “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one equals two. Double jeopardy, by any common sense definition.”
During the hearing tension also erupted between Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann and Agnifilo as she argued that prosecutors were trying to impose an unreasonable deadline because they didn’t want their work on the case to “be double-jeopardied out.”
“It is utterly unfair that they want two bites of the apple to prosecute this young man,” Agnifilo argued.
Seidemann responded that if the federal case were to go first it would effectively “lock the courtroom” in the state case, adding that it’s important for the case to move the case quickly in order to help bring closure to Thompson’s family.
“The court isn’t bound by the desires of Pat Thompson, his 78-year old mother, or his brother Mark, but that certainly is a consideration,” Seidemann said.
Agnifilo said her team has been working “around the clock” to move the case forward, citing the dropped terrorism charges in the state case and death penalty-eligibility counts in the federal one, but she repeated throughout the hearing that a June trial date is not feasible.
“You’ve done a great job — so be ready on June 8,” Carro shot back.
