New York — Prosecutors said Friday that Luigi Mangione’s death penalty case in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson should continue unimpeded, urging the judge to reject the defense’s push to dismiss the charges and rule out the death penalty because of Prosecutor Pam Bondi’s public statements suggesting Mangione deserved to be executed.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan also asked U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to reject the defense’s attempt to suppress some evidence collected during the arrest last year, including a 9mm handgun, a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intention to “bother” an insurance company executive and statements he made to police.
“Pretrial publicity, even when extensive, is not in itself a constitutional defect,” prosecutors wrote in a 121-page memorandum to the court, citing previous rulings by the Supreme Court and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As for the evidence, which Mangione’s lawyers contend was collected without a warrant and without reading him his rights, prosecutors said police officers were justified in searching the suspect’s backpack to make sure there were no dangerous items. They said that his statements to the officers were made voluntarily and before he was taken into police custody.
Rather than dismiss the case outright or prevent the government from seeking the death penalty, prosecutors said, the best way to ease the defense’s concerns is to carefully question potential jurors about their knowledge of the case and ensure Mangione’s rights at trial are respected.
“What the defendant recast as a constitutional crisis is merely a restatement of arguments” that had been rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “Nothing warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical denial of the sentence approved by Congress.”
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges.
In September the judge State terrorism charges were dropped against him but kept the rest of that case — including the murder charge — in place. He is scheduled to return to court in the state’s case on December 1, as his attorneys seek to prevent prosecutors from using much of the same evidence seized when he was arrested.
Mangione’s next trial date in the federal case is Jan. 9.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, upon arriving at a Manhattan hotel to attend his company’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “denial” and “deposit” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurance companies avoid paying claims.
Mangione, the scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was educated at an Ivy League university. He was arrested five days later While eating breakfast at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Bondi announced in April that she had directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally charged that the death penalty was justified in a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Bondi’s announcement — which she followed up with Instagram posts and television appearances — showed the decision was “based on politics, not merit,” the defense said in a court filing in September. They also said her statements tainted the grand jury process that led to his indictment a few weeks later.
His lawyers said Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed crime walk that saw Mangione driven into Manhattan Harbor by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s violation of established death penalty procedures — “violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and fatally prejudiced this death penalty case.”
Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented string of 13 executions at the end of his first term, also offered opinions about Mangione despite court rulings against any pretrial publicity that could interfere with the right to a fair trial.
“He shot somebody in the back, like you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you,” Trump told Fox News in September. “He shot, he looked like pure killer.”
In their filing on Friday, federal prosecutors countered that Bundy’s statements were not relevant to the process because there was no evidence that the grand jurors who voted to indict Mangione were influenced.
“This argument, like others, is based on conjecture, not evidence,” the prosecution team said.
They added that the defense did not cite any precedent “suggesting that public comment renders the grand jury incapable of fulfilling its constitutional role.”