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Luigi Mangione faces the death penalty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO, prosecutors said Friday brian thompson The motion should proceed unhindered, urging the judge to reject the defense’s effort to dismiss the charges and reject the death penalty over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s public statements suggesting that Mangione should be executed.
US attorney’s office Manhattan U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett was also asked to reject the defense’s effort to suppress some evidence collected during an arrest last year, including a 9mm handgun, a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intention to “destroy” an insurance executive and statements he made to police.
“Pretrial publicity, even if intense, is not in itself a constitutional flaw,” prosecutors wrote in a 121-page court filing, citing prior rulings. Supreme Court and the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
As for the evidence, which Mangione’s lawyers argue was collected without a warrant and without reading him his rights, prosecutors said police officers were justified in searching the suspect’s bag to make sure there were no dangerous items. His statements to authorities were made voluntarily and before he was taken into police custody, he said.
Prosecutors argued that rather than dismissing the case outright or preventing the government from seeking the death penalty, the defense’s concerns could be mitigated by carefully questioning potential jurors about their knowledge of the case and ensuring that Mangione’s rights were respected at trial.
Prosecutors said, “What the defendant presents as a constitutional threat is merely a repetition of arguments” that had been rejected in previous cases. “Nothing warrants dismissing the indictment or explicitly excluding any punishment authorized by Congress.”
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges.
A judge in September dismissed state terrorism charges against him, but upheld the rest of that case – including a charge of intentional homicide. He is due back in court in the state case on December 1 because his lawyers want to prevent prosecutors from using the same evidence seized upon his arrest.
Mangione’s next court date in the federal case is Jan. 9.
Thompson, 50, was murdered on December 4, 2024, as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video shows a masked gunman shooting him in the back. Police say the ammunition was marked with “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” which mimics a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Bondy announced in April that she was instructing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally charged that the death penalty was needed for “a premeditated, cold-blooded murder that shocked America.”
The defense argued in a September court hearing that Bondi’s announcement — which followed an Instagram post and a TV appearance — showed that the decision was “based on politics, not merits.” He also said that his comments tainted the grand jury process that resulted in his indictment a few weeks later.
Bondi’s statements and other official actions – including a highly choreographed perp walk that saw Mangione escorted by armed officers to a Manhattan pier, and trump The administration’s violations of established death penalty procedures — “violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and fatally prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers said.
Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented 13 executions at the end of his first term, has offered the opinion about Mangione despite court rules against any pre-trial publicity that could interfere with the right to a fair trial.
“He shot somebody in the back, it’s obvious whether you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you. He shot — he looked like a pure killer,” Trump told Fox News in September.
In their Friday filing, federal prosecutors countered that Bondi’s comments were irrelevant to the process because there is no evidence that the grand jurors who voted to indict Mangione were influenced.
The prosecution team said, “This argument, like others, is based on speculation rather than evidence.”
Nor has the defense cited any precedent, he added, “suggesting that public comment renders a grand jury incapable of fulfilling its constitutional role.”