BREAKING: Luigi Mangione no longer faces death penalty after Biden judge dismisses two charges

The death penalty is no longer on the table for Luigi Mangione, the man charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a late 2024 shooting in Manhattan, after a federal judge dismissed two federal counts against Mangione.

Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed two of four federal counts in Mangione’s case, murder through use of a firearm, which carries a potential sentence of death, and a related firearms charge. Two federal stalking counts are still in place, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
 

The murder charge was dismissed by the judge because it requires that the killing was committed during another "crime of violence," which prosecutors alleged was the two stalking charges. Prosecutors alleged that Mangione had stalked Thompson online, and then traveled across state lines to carry out the fatal shooting. Garnett disagreed with the prosecutors, finding that the stalking charges were not "crimes of violence" and dismissed the murder and related firearm charges.

Garnett wrote, "The analysis contained in the balance of this opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law. But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case. The law must be the Court’s only concern."

Garnett also ruled that the federal trial can feature evidence that was seized from the backpack Mangione was found with when he was arrested in Pennsylvania days after the shooting. Prosecutors have said that the backpack contained fake IDs, a ghost gun, and writings detailing Mangione’s criticisms of the US healthcare system. Defense lawyers had sought to have the evidence barred from the trial, arguing that the officers who made the arrest had conducted an illegal search. Garnett wrote in response to the defense’s arguments, "The search was reasonable under the facts of this case."

In addition to the remaining federal charges, a trial for which is set to start on September 8, Mangione also faces nine counts in a case brought forth by New York state prosecutors for the December 2024 killing of Thompson outside of a Manhattan hotel.