Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty over alleged killing of healthcare boss
Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty if found guilty of killing UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in 2024.
Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed the two death-eligible counts from Mangione’s indictment today, despite pushes for it by prosecutors.
Garnett threw out the murder through use of a firearm charge because it requires that the killing was committed during another ‘crime of violence’.
Prosecutors claimed these other crimes were two stalking charges, which Garnett also found did not fit the legal definition of violence.
Garnett said the case would still proceed to trial on other counts, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
With the death penalty off the table, Garnett said federal trial will begin in October.
But state prosecutors are seeking to try Mangione as soon as July.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
He was arrested five days after the killing of Brian Thompson outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
Thompson, at the helm of one of the US’ largest health insurers, was shot while walking toward the UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor day.
Mangione is going on trial twice because both federal and state prosecutors charged him with different crimes.
The key difference is that federal prosecutors believe Mangione stalked Thompson online and travelled to New York to carry out the killing.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged him with:
- One count of first-degree murder
- A terrorism-related offence
- Two second-degree murder counts
- And weapons crimes.
While the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York charged him with one count of murder, two counts of stalking and a firearms offence.
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