Federal Prosecutors to Search Demise Penalty for Luigi Mangione

[ad_1] NEW YORK — U.S. Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi mentioned Tuesday that she has directed prosecutors to hunt the demise penalty towards Luigi Mangione within the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, following by on the president's marketing campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment.

It's the first time the Justice Division has sought to carry the demise penalty since President Donald Trump returned to workplace in January with a vow to renew federal executions after they had been halted below the earlier administration.

“Luigi Mangione’s homicide of Brian Thompson—an harmless man and father of two younger youngsters—was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi mentioned in a press release. She described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence.”

Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a distinguished Maryland actual property household, faces separate federal and state homicide prices after authorities say he gunned down Thompson, 50, exterior a Manhattan lodge on Dec. 4 as the manager arrived for UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor convention.

Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, mentioned Tuesday that in searching for the demise penalty “the Justice Division has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric.”

Mangione “is caught in a high-stakes recreation of tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors, besides the trophy is a younger man’s life,” Friedman Agnifilo mentioned in a press release, vowing to combat all prices towards him.

The killing and ensuing five-day manhunt resulting in Mangione's arrest rattled the enterprise group, with some well being insurers swiftly switching to distant work or on-line shareholder conferences. It additionally galvanized medical health insurance critics—a few of whom have rallied round Mangione as a stand-in for frustrations over protection denials and hefty medical payments.

Learn Extra: The Web Missed the Level on Luigi Mangione

Surveillance video confirmed a masked gunman taking pictures Thompson from behind. Police say the phrases “delay,” “deny” and “depose” had been scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase generally used to explain insurer ways to keep away from paying claims.

Mangione's federal prices embrace homicide by use of a firearm, which carries the potential of the demise penalty. The state prices carry a most punishment of life in jail. Mangione has pleaded not responsible to a state indictment and has not but been required to enter a plea on the federal prices.

Prosecutors have mentioned the 2 circumstances will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state case anticipated to go to trial first. It wasn't instantly clear if Bondi's announcement will change the order.

Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York Metropolis and whisked to Manhattan by airplane and helicopter.

Police mentioned Mangione had a 9mm handgun that matched the one used within the taking pictures and different objects together with a pocket book through which they are saying he expressed hostility towards the medical health insurance trade and rich executives.

Among the many entries, prosecutors mentioned, was one from August 2024 that mentioned “the goal is insurance coverage” as a result of “it checks each field” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance coverage firm CEO. UnitedHealthcare, the most important U.S. well being insurer, has mentioned Mangione was by no means a shopper.

Mangione's lawyer has mentioned she would search to suppress a number of the proof.

Former President Joe Biden’s Justice Division filed the federal case towards Mangione however left it to Trump and his administration to resolve whether or not to hunt the demise penalty. As a result of the federal case had been taking a backseat to the state case, federal prosecutors have but to hunt a grand jury indictment, which is required for capital circumstances.

Trump oversaw an unprecedented run of 13 executions on the finish of his first time period and has been an outspoken proponent of increasing capital punishment. Trump signed an govt order on his first day again in workplace on Jan. 20 that compels the Justice Division to hunt the demise penalty in federal circumstances the place relevant.

Bondi’s order comes weeks after she lifted a Biden-era moratorium on federal executions.

Biden campaigned on a pledge to work towards abolishing federal capital punishment however took no main steps to that finish. Whereas Lawyer Normal Merrick Garland halted federal executions in 2021, Biden's Justice Division on the similar time fought vigorously to keep up the sentences of demise row inmates in lots of circumstances.

In his ultimate weeks in workplace, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 folks on federal demise row, changing their punishments to life in jail.

The three inmates that stay are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of 9 Black members of Mom Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic assault in U.S historical past.