Luigi Mangione’s attorneys push to remove death penalty in federal case
Attorneys for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, pushed to block federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the case on Saturday, saying authorities have acted improperly.
In court papers, Mangione’s lawyers said Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials “have intentionally and serially violated his constitutional rights.” His attorneys accused officials of inappropriately indicating to the public that Mangione was guilty, dangerous and needed to be executed.
“This case is simply without precedent,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote in a 114-page motion submitted early Saturday. “However broad the government’s discretion may be in charging death penalty cases, the government’s actions here abuse that discretion.”
Mangione, 27, faces federal murder and stalking charges. Law enforcement officials say he killed Thompson, 50, while the executive was heading to an investor conference in Manhattan in December 2024. The shooting set off a five-day manhunt that ended with Mangione’s arrest in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. Mangione has pleaded not guilty.
Bondi announced in April that the Justice Department would seek a death sentence for Mangione, saying in a statement that Thompson’s slaying “was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination.” She and President Donald Trump have vocally supported capital punishment and pledged to revive its use on the federal level.
During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department carried out 13 federal executions. The Biden administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, though the Justice Department continued to seek and defend some federal death sentences. Before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row to life without parole, a decision Bondi has denounced.
The Justice Department contended in a court filing in April that Mangione had plotted to kill Thompson and sought “to amplify an ideological message, maximize the visibility and impact of the victim’s murder, and to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim’s industry.”
Mangione’s attorneys said in their filing Saturday that Bondi’s decision about the death penalty was “based on politics, not merit.”
The lawyers wrote that she had not given the choice careful consideration, and they criticized Bondi for her rhetoric on Mangione, accusing her of improperly seeking to influence the public.
“Mangione was indicted by a pool of grand jurors who must have been exposed to the nation’s top law enforcement officer telling them that Mangione was the target of the government’s ongoing investigation, that he was guilty, and that he should be killed by the government,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote.
The Justice Department declined to comment Saturday, as did a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
Mangione’s attorneys also criticized other aspects of how officials have handled and discussed his case. They highlighted, for example, Mangione’s arrival in New York after his arrest in Pennsylvania, when he was met by a throng of law enforcement officers accompanied by New York Mayor Eric Adams (D).
This “was done purely to dehumanize Mangione,” his lawyers wrote in their filing, and gave jurors an image “out of a Marvel movie, with dozens of agents needed to protect the public from the shackled monster Mangione.”
In addition to pushing to prevent prosecutors from seeking a death sentence, Mangione’s attorneys also sought to dismiss the federal indictment outright.
Mangione also faces a state prosecution. He won a key victory in that case on Wednesday when a judge dismissed terrorism charges against him. The judge said the evidence did not support those charges.
He still faces other state counts, including murder in the second degree, and a potential sentence of life in prison if convicted. New York state does not have the death penalty.