Judge rules Luigi Mangione won't face death penalty
Fox News' Nate Foy reports that a judge agreed to throw out the most serious charge against Luigi Mangione and denied the defense's request to suppress some evidence. Legal editor Kerri Urbahn discusses the judge's decisions.
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Luigi Mangione has escaped the death penalty.
The accused killer's life will be spared after federal prosecutors said Friday they will not appeal a judge's ruling to quash capital punishment against him.
In a letter, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District said it accepts U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett‘s Jan. 30 decision to dismiss a death penalty-eligible murder charge against Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson Dec. 4, 2024.
Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty after federal prosecutors on Friday said they won't appeal a judge's ruling that dismissed a capital punishment charge against the accused killer. (Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool)
Despite not being tried on murder charges, Mangione still faces two federal stalking charges.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. Opening statements will begin in October.
Mangione, 27, also faces life in prison at a separate murder trial in state court slated to begin in June. He has pleaded not guilty to Thompson's killing.
To charge Mangione with the federal count of murder through use of a gun, prosecutors need an underlying crime of violence, Garnett said in her January ruling.
POLICE SERGEANT DENIES HEARING LUIGI MANGIONE MOTHER'S ALLEGED DAMNING STATEMENT ABOUT CEO KILLING
This 2017 file photo of Brian Thompson was released via Businesswire when he was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare Unit in 2017. (Businesswire)
Garnett wrote that she was bound by Supreme Court precedent.
"Over the course of the last two decades or so, the Supreme Court has embarked upon a legal journey, explained herein, that now requires lower courts to engage in an analysis totally divorced from the conduct at issue and centered on the hypothetically least serious conduct that the charged crime could possibly cover," she wrote.
Surveillance cameras recorded the slaying. Video footage showed Thompson walking down a Manhattan sidewalk outside a hotel when a gunman approached him from behind and opened fire.
Composite image of Luigi Mangione with inset of the shooting of Brian Thompson (Fox News)
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Thompson sustained multiple gunshot wounds and collapsed to the ground. The gunman fled and was later spotted making his way uptown on a bicycle.
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