A federal judge has tossed two of the federal government’s charges against the man accused of murdering a prominent insurance executive, meaning he will no longer face the death penalty.
In an order issued Friday, District Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed the charge of murder using a firearm as well as a related gun charge in the federal case against Luigi Mangione. The former would have carried a capital sentence.
Mangione is accused of murdering then-UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York on the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, when the executive was walking to the company’s annual investor day. He was arrested several days later by police in a rural central Pennsylvania McDonald’s following a broad manhunt.
The court allowed two federal stalking charges to move forward, which carry a life sentence with no possibility of parole. Mangione will also have to face nine criminal charges in New York state stemming from Thompson’s killing, including second-degree murder.
The New York charges also carry a potential sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to both the federal and New York charges.
The crux of the argument over the two federal charges that were ultimately rejected was whether or not the incident would be considered a “crime of violence.” Federal prosecutors believed the case met that precedent, as established by the Supreme Court, but Garnett disagreed.
She noted that lower courts have found this precedent hard “to apply with any confidence or consistency,” and it has produced difficult-to-understand results, including in this case, where the court is determining a public murder does not meet the standard of “crime of violence.”
“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,” Garnett wrote. “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 wrote.
The ruling is a blow to federal prosecutors, who came out swinging with the initial charges against Mangione. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Thompson’s murder “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination.”
Mangione’s legal team called the ruling an “incredible decision” in meeting with reporters after the hearing, per NBC News.
“We’re all very relieved,” Defense Attorney Karen Agnifilo told journalists, NBC reported.
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