Luigi Mangione’s lawyers asked a federal judge in New York to reshape the timetable for his two pending trials tied to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arguing that the current schedule would compromise key parts of the legal process. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, Mangione’s attorneys sought a postponement of the federal case until January 2027 and said they would also ask the state trial judge, Gregory Carro, to move the state matter’s start to September.
The attorneys said the existing calendar—with a state trial in June and a federal trial in September—would place Mangione in a position where he would have to prepare for two “complicated and serious trials at the same time.” They asked Garnett to delay the federal proceedings so there would be time to request adjustments from Carro, including moving the June 8 state trial date to Sept. 8.
Garnett is the judge overseeing Mangione’s federal prosecution, while Carro is overseeing the state case. The letter describes how Carro previously floated the possibility of shifting the state trial date to September, but only if federal prosecutors appealed Garnett’s decision barring them from seeking the death penalty. Prosecutors did not pursue such an appeal, leaving the June state trial date and the September federal trial date intact, according to the attorneys’ filing.
Mangione pleaded not guilty in both the state and federal cases. The request comes as he faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted in either matter. In February, at a court hearing, Mangione spoke out against what he called the prospect of being forced through consecutive trials, telling the judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
A central part of the defense argument focused on how jury selection work would overlap between the two cases. The lawyers said that keeping the federal schedule would mean that potential jurors would be exposed to continuing news coverage and social media posts about the allegations and evidence against Mangione while they filled out juror questionnaires and in the weeks before jurors were empaneled in the federal case.
The defense also argued that overlapping preparation tasks could limit Mangione’s ability to participate in his own defense. They said federal jury selection preparations would run into the state case timeline, narrowing his ability to review questionnaires completed by hundreds of potential jurors, and they argued that back-to-back proceedings would deprive him of effective assistance because the defense team would be forced to split its time between courtrooms.
“Though fierce advocates for their clients, defense counsel cannot be in two places at once,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote, identifying the attorneys as Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo and Jacob Kaplan. The letter also said that delaying the federal trial would create a buffer between the state trial and the start of the juror questionnaire process that precedes federal jury selection.
Federal prosecutors opposed the request and said they would respond in a letter, Mangione’s lawyers said. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the federal case, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the state case, declined to comment.
The cases stem from the killing of Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Police said surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Officers said the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, and Mangione was arrested five days later after he was spotted eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.