A federal judge on Friday dismissed the two death penalty-eligible counts against Luigi Mangione — taking capital punishment off the table for the man accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett heard extensive oral arguments as Mangione’s attorneys fought to nix the third and fourth charges in the 27-year-old’s indictment: murder through use of a firearm and a firearms offense related to carrying a gun equipped with a silencer.
The announcement came as Mangione was back in Manhattan federal court on Friday for another pre-trial hearing.
The first two counts relate to interstate stalking and cyberstalking, while the latter two — which are death penalty-eligible — hinge on firearm use while committing a “crime of violence.” Mangione’s legal team argued that, as a matter of law, the stalking charges are not crimes of violence — and in turn, the murder and gun charges could not stand.
Garnett cited Supreme Court precedent in her 39-page opinion Friday, agreeing with the defense’s legal theory.
For one, the element of a stalking offense that the victim experiences a “reasonable fear” could be satisfied by reckless acts, rather than violent ones, the judge wrote. It doesn’t change the calculus if a death occurred.
“Because the resulting death can be caused accidentally, and certainly negligently or recklessly, the ‘death results’ element cannot supply the necessary use of force to convert the charged stalking offenses into ‘crimes of violence,'” Garnett wrote.
Furthermore, stalking offenses can be brought based on the threat of self-harm, rather than harm to another person.
“Examples are not hard to come by,” the judge said. She cited the 2024 Plunkett decision from the Eighth Circuit: “‘For instance, a woman’s estranged husband could travel in interstate commerce with the intent to harass her and, in the course of doing so, threaten to shoot himself if she refused to meet with him.'”
Noting that “family violence and intimate partner violence are complicated,” the judge said that “including threats of perpetrator self-harm is more consistent with the broadest protection for victims.”
Backpack evidence will come into play
Shortly before handing down the dismissal ruling Friday, Garnett ruled against Mangione’s Fourth Amendment bid to quash evidence from his backpack at the time of his December 2024 arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, PA.
While she honored the defense’s request to hold an evidence hearing over whether Altoona police followed its own protocol when it searched and inventoried the contents of Mangione’s backpack without a warrant — including reading the contents of his journal — the testimony did not sway her to block the evidence from coming into play at trial set to start in September.
“In sum, numerous exceptions to the warrant requirement (as well as the federal search warrant actually issued) preclude suppression of the backpack and its contents in this case, whether through the discovery of the loaded magazine during a pre-transport safety search, the recovery of the remaining items in the course of an inventory search a the police station, or the inevitable discovery of all the contents through the federal search warrant,” Garnett wrote in a separate, 43-page ruling.
Mangione’s attorneys will make a statement during or following Friday’s court appearance.
This is a developing story; check with amNY.com later for updates.
