Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealth Group chief executive Brian Thompson, appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on New York state murder and terrorism charges in New York City, U.S., Feb. 21, 2025.
Steven Hirsch | Via Reuters
Lawyer for Luigi Mangione on Friday asked a federal judge in New York to block prosecutors from seeking to impose the death penalty if he is convicted of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione’s attorneys said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had violated his rights to due process by abandoning normal procedures for seeking the death penalty, and that Bondi had prejudiced the pool of grand jurors who will be asked by prosecutors to indict Mangione.
“The stakes could not be higher. The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione
as a political stunt,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote in a new filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Bondi on April 1 said she had ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the murder case.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement issued by the Department of Justice at the time.
In their filing Friday, Mangione’s lawyers cited Bondi’s statement, in which she had said the death penalty would “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
“When the United States plans to kill one of its citizens, it must follow statutory and internal
procedures. Defendant Luigi Mangione seeks Court intervention now not merely because the Government has failed to follow these procedures but because it has abandoned them,” defense lawyers wrote, point to Bondi’s comment.
“Mr. Mangione’s counsel asked for three months to prepare a fulsome mitigation submission to the Department of Justice’s Capital Committee and was ignored,” the filing said.
“We appreciate, and will address, the province and discretion of the Executive Branch of government, and how, in the usual course, courts defer to the Executive’s established procedures,” the lawyers wrote.
“But the Attorney General’s actions and public statements in this case have not followed the usual course. Because the Attorney General has chosen to proceed in this way, Mr. Mangione’s Due Process rights have already been violated and the manner in which the Government has acted has prejudiced the grand jury pool and has corrupted the grand jury process.”
Mangione, 26, is accused of fatally shooting Thompson on Dec. 4 as the CEO was walking into a Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where UnitedHealth Group, the parent of his company, was hosting an event for investors.
Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
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