Federal prosecutors will not appeal a judge’s ruling that bars them from seeking the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the Dec. 4, 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the government said in a letter to the judge. In the filing, Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley told U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett that the government will not ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse her decision. The move clears the way for the federal case to move toward trial, with prosecutors scheduling a start in September.
Garnett’s ruling, issued last month, dismissed a federal murder charge—murder through use of a firearm—that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment. The judge wrote that the dismissal was intended to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury” as she weighs whether Mangione should be convicted in the federal case.
Garnett also dismissed a gun charge but left stalking charges intact. Those stalking counts, according to the AP report, carry a maximum punishment of life in prison, meaning the death penalty option is no longer available in the federal track even as prosecutors continue pursuing a conviction. To seek death in the federal case, prosecutors had needed to show Mangione killed Thompson while committing another qualifying “crime of violence,” Garnett said in a 39-page opinion. The judge found that stalking did not fit that legal definition, citing case law and legal precedents.
The ruling disrupts the Trump administration’s effort to seek execution in the case, a bid the AP report links to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s characterization of the killing as a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.” Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty in both the federal and state cases, and the AP report said the state charges also leave open the possibility of life in prison. The government’s decision not to appeal Garnett’s death-penalty-eligibility ruling applies only to the federal death-penalty request that the judge barred.
Garnett, who is described by the AP report as a former Manhattan federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, acknowledged that the decision “may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange,” and that it could appear to conflict with common intuitions about the criminal law. She said the outcome reflected a “committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case” and that “The law must be the Court’s only concern.”
Mangione faces the federal trial beginning in September, AP reported. Jury selection is scheduled for Sept. 8, with opening statements and testimony set for Oct. 13. In the parallel state case, the AP report said the trial is set to begin June 8.
The state case timing could shift depending on what happens in federal court. AP reported that in the state proceedings, Judge Gregory Carro said the state trial could be pushed back until Sept. 8 if federal prosecutors appealed and delayed the federal capital-eligibility ruling. With prosecutors now declining to appeal, the AP report said, the state and federal schedules are expected to proceed on their respective tracks.
Mangione’s comments in court have challenged the idea of conducting back-to-back proceedings. AP reported that at a recent hearing, Mangione argued it would effectively be “the same trial twice,” telling a judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
The case centers on Thompson’s killing as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference on Dec. 4, 2024, AP reported. Surveillance video, the report said, showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police said ammunition found in the case had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” a phrase that police said mimicked language used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
AP also reported that Mangione was arrested five days after the killing after he was spotted eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. His lawyers argued that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle, including by having armed officers parade him up a Manhattan pier after he was flown to New York, and by publicly stating a desire to see him executed before he was formally indicted.