Luigi Mangione, the suspected gunman in the December 2024 shooting of Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, is charged with murder in New York state court. Prosecutors have said the notebook contains writings that reveal a motive targeting the health insurance industry, and the gun — a 3D-printed handgun — matches shell casings found at the crime scene. Monday’s ruling came five months after Carro held a hearing to examine how police recovered the items, which were initially seized from Mangione when he was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona on December 9, 2024.
A McDonald’s employee had called police after recognizing Mangione from surveillance images. Officers arrested him without incident and searched his backpack at the scene. Carro found that search lawful in part — the officers could seize the backpack — but said the search of the bag’s interior before securing a warrant crossed constitutional lines. The gun and notebook were not in the backpack at the time of the arrest; police recovered them separately after obtaining search warrants for Mangione’s belongings and a vehicle linked to him, and Carro ruled those warrants valid.
The decision on the gun and notebook is a significant pretrial victory for Manhattan prosecutors, who can now present the two items as direct evidence linking Mangione to the killing. In a separate hearing earlier this year, a federal judge reached the same conclusion regarding the same evidence in Mangione’s federal murder case, which was filed in addition to the state case. The federal trial is scheduled for October; Mangione’s state trial is set for July.
Items Carro excluded from the state case — the loaded magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet, and a computer chip — were inside the backpack at the time of the arrest. He also threw out some statements Mangione made to Altoona police before officers placed him in handcuffs, saying Mangione was not yet formally in custody and had not been read his Miranda rights. Prosecutors had not argued those statements were voluntary; Carro’s ruling removes them from the state trial but leaves them potentially admissible in the federal case, where different search standards and Miranda findings apply.
Defense attorneys had argued that the entire chain of evidence derived from the initial arrest was tainted by unconstitutional police conduct, including the warrantless backpack search. Carro’s ruling splits the baby: the gun and notebook survive, but the backpack contents and early statements are excluded. Legal analysts said the split result is a common outcome in cases where an arrest yields evidence but the search procedures are scrutinized.
Mangione, 26, remains held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty to state murder charges and to federal charges of murder, stalking, and firearms offenses. A federal judge has barred the government from seeking the death penalty, a ruling prosecutors declined to appeal. Mangione’s state trial, expected to last several weeks, could be delayed further if pretrial motions continue.