Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty after a U.S. judge on Friday dismissed federal murder and weapons charges against him in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, dealing a major setback to prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan said Supreme Court precedent left her little choice but to throw out the murder charges, ruling they were legally incompatible with the two federal stalking charges Mangione still faces. If convicted on those counts, he could still be sentenced to life in prison.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to Thompson’s death in December 2024 and has remained in custody since his arrest.
While officials across the country condemned the killing, Mangione has drawn sympathy from some Americans critical of rising healthcare costs and the practices of health insurers.
He has also pleaded not guilty to separate murder, weapons and forgery charges in New York state court in Manhattan. A trial date has not yet been set. Jury selection in the federal case had been scheduled to begin in September.
In a 39-page ruling, Garnett said federal prosecutors could only pursue the murder and weapons charges if the stalking counts qualified as “crimes of violence.”
She found that they did not, because the alleged use of force could be based on reckless conduct rather than intentional action.
Both prosecutors and the defense agreed, she said, that this did not meet the Supreme Court’s standard for a crime of violence.
Garnett acknowledged what she called the “apparent absurdity” of the outcome, noting that few would dispute that Mangione’s alleged actions — traveling across state lines to kill a specific healthcare executive with a silenced handgun — amounted to violent criminal behavior.
She said her reasoning might appear “tortured and strange” to the public and even to many legal professionals, but stressed that it reflected the court’s obligation to apply Supreme Court rulings as written. “The law must be the court’s only concern,” she said.
