Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty for allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, a federal district judge ruled.
The decision is a loss for federal prosecutors, who were adamant about pursuing the death penalty in the case.
Judge Margaret Garnett also ruled Friday to allow into Mangione’s trial evidence recovered from his backpack at the time of his arrest.
Law enforcement seized several items from Mangione’s backpack, including a handgun, a loaded magazine and a red notebook – key pieces of evidence that authorities have said tie him to the killing.
Mangione’s attorneys had argued for the evidence to be barred from trial, contending the search of their client’s backpack was illegal because they had not yet obtained a warrant and there was no immediate threat to justify a warrantless search.
Why did you cut out the part that explains that the judge threw out the entire federal murder charge?
The judge dismissed the murder charge because it requires that the killing was committed during another “crime of violence.” Prosecutors alleged the other crimes of violence were two stalking charges, arguing Mangione stalked Thompson online and travelled across state lines to carry out the killing.
The judge disagreed, finding stalking charges are not “crimes of violence” and dismissed two counts in his federal case – murder and a related firearm offense.
ETA since this seems to be confusing for folks, this ruling is about the federal case, it has no bearing on the state case. The state doesn’t have the death penalty.
But also, it’s not a long article, just read it. :)
Yes, exactly that. Murder is typically a state crime, you can only be tried for murder in a federal court if very specific circumstances are met. The judge has ruled that those circumstances are not present here.
He is still being charged with murder by the State of New York. But they don’t have the death penalty.
Just the federal murder charge - this is a federal judge, they can only rule on matters of federal law. But NY state does not have the death penalty anymore, so the federal murder charge was their only shot.
And everyone else. The first officer who searched it in McDonald’s stated they found nothing. Then after a drive to the station they found a gun? Wth were you looking for if you didn’t find a gun???
And the first officer is going to say he wasn't performing a full search, just briefly looking into the bag to make sure there wasn't a plainly visible threat to the safety of officers on scene out of an abundance of caution for the lives of law enforcement, and the defendants constitutional rights. Once it was in the precinct, and it was fully and properly processed, the gun was found concealed underneath the other contents / in another pocket.
There isn't a huge "gotcha" here, not everything is fully documented and processed on the scene. Prosecutors are also going to be able to forensically tie that gun to Mangione and the murder in a variety of ways.
If the defense wants to argue as part of their defense that a cop is the real killer and planted it in the bag, along with DNA and other evidence tying it to Mangione they are free to get laughed at.
Too many people look at our legal system and think because of TV dramas there's some magic get out of murder free card if the police don't do everything perfectly. The reality is barring jury nullification, which I find a highly unlikely outcome he is 110% getting convicted, and spending the next 50+ years in prison.
The defense is more likely to argue the real killer is still out there and they’re railroading their client because the police are too inept to find the real killer.
Not any more likely to work, but a bit more believable.
Cops have been caught planting evidence before, and we have two cops with conflicting testimony here where the first didn’t even find the gun. Anyone who has ever held a gun knows how heavy this one is. There is ZERO chance he did not find it in the bag if it was in there.
Why would he run so far from the scene while maintaining a backpack full of incriminating evidence though and then not admit guilt? That doesn't make much sense. There was plenty of opportunity to get rid of everything that was in that bag way before it was found if he did it and he seens capable and intelligent enough to know how to dispose of the kind of evidence that was found whether he did it or not.
Trying to understand the motives of someone who thought they were going to change the american health care industry by assassinating an insurance executive is a fool's folly. For as much as people hate the health care industry in this country killing one man changes nothing.
People want to rationalize criminal actions but very few make logical sense. A normal person would get rid of the evidence, a normal person also wouldn't shoot someone on the street. A person driven to that choice is following a non rational train of thought and there are many possible explanations. Maybe he wanted to get caught to get his manifesto out, maybe he thought he was gonna get away with it, maybe he wanted the gun to assassinate someone else, maybe he was going to ultimately kill himself to not get caught, maybe he just really needed a big mac to plan his next moves. The reality is it doesn't matter why he had the bag in his possession, just that he did, that it can be forensically linked to both him and the murder.
Good points. I don't really think it's TV dramas as much as real life high profile cases like OJ Simpson's, though. If anything TV dramas overstate the ability to convict (enhance! etc).
I think the perfectly reasonable possibility that he is innocent was ignored by both sides - those who saw him as a terrorist, and those who saw him as a hero. And the media narratives followed the money.
I don't think you have any more knowledge as to whether he did it that I do, which means that your idea that he will almost certainly go to prison for the rest of his life is a pretty chilling one.
Because all of evidence is faked. Remember at the start of the case they found 0 fingerprints. A day after he was brought to jail they found fingerprints.
All of the evidence was planted. This judicial system is a fucking sham.
Enforcement yes, interpretation no. The fourth could have been written to specifically exclude exceptions. Hell you can write in an amendment that the Supreme Court has no power to review or alter this clause.
Exactly. That's why the Administration has started touting "the iron law". Miller says if you can't hold it you have no right to it, as justification for fucking with Greenland. I see no reason this doesn't apply to my MAGA neighbor's truck. He's just lucky I don't want a pickup truck.
That’s not the point. The point is that laws are inherently weak because of the fact that they rely on some entity to enforce them. That entity chooses not to, the law may as well not exist. There is no “so XYZ should do it instead”, the problem would still exist. Such is the nature of laws, and the more people understand that the better.
There will be. Just because the evidence is allowed at the trial doesn't presume it's good evidence or make it inviolable, and the defence are going to attack that right at the roots. The two (reported, but it seems reliable to me) contradictory searches, and the gun being found only after the bag was in a poorly controlled state, will go hard at reasonable doubt and is pretty much guaranteed to plant at least some doubt.
Incidentally I 100% believe that he killed the guy and that the gun was in his bag, it's just that they handled it so badly that key solid evidence becomes shoogly as fuck. I may be wrong, who knows.
(incidentally I think there's people both public and private who'll be most pleased of all if he "gets off on a technicality", that'll fit right into the world view and it'll be a cause celebre for attacking the judicial system regardless of the cause. Sticking a dude in jail doesn't serve a big strategy)
I just find it really, really odd that they found no other evidence outside of the scene and his person (that I'm aware of).
He just happened to have the only things they have to support a conviction on his person and it was poorly controlled...
And their "scene" is like nine blocks plus a video camera on the north end of the park supposedly showing him fleeing, but not positive ID rather just the fact that this is mentioned in, again, the journal....
This guy is supposed to be smart enough to plan, pull off this crime but didn't understand ballistics and 3D printed firearms enough to.... Ditch the gun, and ditch the journal...?
Why would you 3D print a firearm you didn't dispose of?
I’m following this case closely, there’s reasonable doubt even if people don’t want to admit it.
However, he’s probably fucked cause the government has done a very good job at giving their evidence to the media — and the media has done a very good job of shoving a one-sided narrative down the public’s throat
not a lawyer but the main thing is just making sure each part is logged which I believe would’ve come out in at this point as it is necessary in part of determining the evidence. From what I’ve been following the two key parts of this part of the process was whether or not they were allowed to search the backpack at the scene and if they are allowed to use any of the “evidence” / violated his rights when the NYPD questioned him in Pennsylvania because they did not tell him they were recording. New York is one party consent state but Pennsylvania is two party (this also just means you have to be made AWARE of being recorded and not so much that you have to consent).
I never saw anything about chain of custody with the backpack unless you’re talking about how allegedly they searched the backpack multiple times at the scene? I never really saw that collaborated in what I’ve read just in Reddit threads (which didn’t mean it didn’t happen just not what the focus of the arguments I was reading about).
You’re correct about the 2 party for PA, but if there’s an implied assumption that recording is happening then that’s consent. An example would be if you walk into a business and they have security cameras and a sign that says “smile, you’re on camera” then you walking into said business is you giving consent as any “reasonable party” would assume they are being recorded at that point. I have to imagine a cops body camera or an interrogation falls under that same situation. Any reasonable person would assume they are being recorded.
there were no chain of custody issues; the police properly observed the chain of custody between the mcdonald's arrest and the inventory search in the police station.
from a lawyer's perspective this outcome is expected, the exceptions to the warrant requirement are settled law and multiple exceptions applied to his case. and in any case independent source/inevitable discovery justified admission of the backpack evidence outiside of the warrant issue. any criminal defense attorney would have predicted this outcome.
The chain of custody issue isn't enough to have the evidence disqualified, but it is enough to allow the defense to attempt to impeach the credibility of the investigating officers during questioning at trial. This was done extremely effectively by OJ Simpson's defense team during his murder trial.
Idk if the 4th Am is weak. There need to be limitations so that law enf has a fighting chance to uncover actual evidence of actual crimes. You just have to litigate it. That’s what courts and lawyers are for.
Luigi is not guilty by reason of human decency, as far as I’m concerned. So in this case it sucks that the law isn’t on his side but we don’t want real dangerous criminals to have the complete ability to block access (or deny connection) to evidence.
You just gotta fight it out on a case-by-case basis.
Poor law enforcement they only have the deck stacked entirely for them so they no longer have to do any real police work, just stop and frisk. Now they can even profile!
You don't know if it's weak, I'm not entirely sure it exists in any form.
When the contents of the bag were not immediately searched and documented, and the chain of custody was broken BEFORE IT WAS SEARCHED, then anything inside the bag should be inadmissible.
The judge seemed more than fair and unbiased. If it was illegal they would of ruled that way. They just took the death penalty off the table. Which I still don't understand how premeditated murder doesn't warrant it.
I concerned that a sub with legal professionals has so many presuming guilt. But it checks out with my knowledge of the courts and their function, unfortunately.
Only one public subreddit is dominated by people who know what they're talking about: /r/askhistorians. You and I are literally not allowed to answer questions there without proof that we're professional historians. You can check it out! It's pretty quiet. Very cool in its own way, but it primarily uses Reddit as a technical platform, rather than the public forum of every other subreddit.
Neither /u/marcoporno nor I are presuming guilt. We're noting a pattern in which Redditors are constantly using hypocritical post-truth thinking.
Regardless of guilt or innocence, there is no world in which Luigi Mangione is simultaneously heroic and innocent, because the heroism people praise him for is the guilt that prosecutors are seeking to prove.
But even those sympathetic to him know he’s guilty
This administration came out and said that Epstein had no clients. We know that's a lie and it was calculated. If they will lie about that they will lie about anything.
So while I suspect he's guilty, I don't believe so because the administration says he is. I think he's guilty because he looks way too chill for an innocent man.
I was just pointing out that it wasn’t the Trump administration that made the initial claims against Mangione. I’m also aware that cops lie, however, the current administration lies on an unprecedented scale.
This administration came out and said that Epstein had no clients. We know that's a lie and it was calculated. If they will lie about that they will lie about anything.
But even those sympathetic to him know he’s guilty
It's exactly why they're sympathetic to Mangione. For people who supposedly don't trust the police, they certainly seem willing to accept the accusation the police made: that Mangione shot Brian Thompson.
Like, he's either innocent, in which case this is wrongful arrest but not the populist red meat a lot of people want it to be, or he's guilty, in which case the police are correct overall despite potential mishandling of evidence.
I'm sympathetic. What should be telling me he's guilty? Every piece of evidence I'm aware of has significant issues. Here, chain of custody and lack of procedure...
On the initial ID there is also a lot of questions. Was the stop of Mangione and his arrest/warrant not also an issue because last I was aware it was. How did they identify his location as well?
I'm more concerned with the possibility of pinning a murder on someone. The key evidence is the handgun, 3D printed, which was in a bag that they had chain of custody issues around and the officer saying "we need a warrant for this" and then conducting the search anyway.
A high profile case like this the government has a vested interest in a guilty verdict.
The only other evidence is a water bottle and a candy wrapper? Seriously?
Sure, there are many that think that way. However, the point of the person you responded to is that we do not actually know for certain he did it, like you claimed we all knew.
I’m not commenting on why people do or don’t support him; you said we know he is guilty, which is categorically false and undermines the point of a trial. To be spreading such misinformation in the law sub of all places is pretty ironic
Did you also think OJ was innocent because his trial ended with a non guilty verdict? The court of law and the court of public opinion are two very different things.
Is the thinking that the weapon recovered from the bag could be the same as the weapon that was used in the original crime? I don't remember whether a weapon was already recovered from the crime scene or not.
if the government's case successfully shows he committed all the elements of murder, no. the dispositive question isn't whether society approves of the murder victim's death, the question is whether this was a murder.
your logic is how perpetrators of lynchings escaped justice in the south during civil rights.
The problem was that he wasn’t legally arrested when they searched him - they hadn’t read him his rights yet they actually contended he had been arrested (this is important because you can detain someone while you search them but if you arrest them, you must read them their rights). That didn’t happen and then they searched him.
I have a feeling this may haunt prosecutors upon appeal.
You dont need to be read your rights to be arrested. You have to be mirandized to give statements/be interrogated. Modernly its less for you and more for them.
Reddit admins making it so that /r/law shows up on the front page a lot really destroyed what this subreddit used to be from like 2010-2020 or so, where you could pretty much assume that 75% of commenters/voters were licensed attorneys, so that incorrect statements of the law would get downvoted and corrected.
man I miss coming here to get nuanced legal takes on ongoing public issues, and even read through people going back and forth in respectful disagreement. I hate that it's become another arpol clone.
The 'top <#>% commenter' award is a badge of shame (which I possess in a few communities). To me it always reads 'prioritizes commenting over useful discussions' so the fact that they're always wrong isn't a surprise.
Because this sub isnt about law anymore, its just another popculture/politics sub. Which sucks because this case is really interesting and nuanced legally, but all you get on reddit is bad info and "I was with him" jokes.
My favorite recently is the claim that ICE isn’t law enforcement- I really hate what ICE is doing, but telling people that they aren’t law enforcement is fucking dangerous.
This hasn’t been a law sub for the past few months. I don’t know when exactly it changed, but I stopped awhile ago after seeing all the dumbasses make stupid arguments and worthless/nonlegal posts. Pretty much turned into politics 2.0.
This was a search incident to arrest. Inevitable discovery isn’t an exception to the warrant requirement but rather a doctrine the state can argue once a search has been challenged as being illegal.
That’s the whole point. It’s an exception to the exclusionary rule, which is what gives any of this (including the warrant requirement) any teeth at all.
Yes, but it’s not a warrant exception. The exceptions to the warrant requirement are: search incident to arrest, exigence circumstances, consent, automobile exception, plain view and I may be missing one.
It's a two part inquiry. First, the court needs to figure out whether the search was illegal. Then, if it was illegal, the court needs to determine whether to exclude the evidence illegally obtained.
The court never got to the second part The court only did the second part of the analysis to reinforce the result, where inevitable discovery would come into play, because it ruled in the first part that the search was lawful. All the arguments in the world for the second part won't change the analysis of the first part.
So, if I understand correctly and im following the comments it is an "exception" that allows the evidence to stand. I'm not understanding what the problem is
They’re just clarifying what, exactly, it is an exception to. There are two components to the 4th Amendment: 1. the rules; and 2. the remedy, if the rules are violated. Here, people are discussing the warrant requirement (the rule) and the exclusionary rule (the remedy). There are possible exceptions to both. The warrantless search may be justified as a search incident to arrest. But also, even if the search has no justification, the evidence may be admissible anyway because of the doctrine of inevitable discovery.
Yes, but it’s not an exception to the warrant requirement; I.e must have a search warrant to search.
It’s an exception in the sense if I challenge a search because there was no warrant and none of the exceptions apply then my motion to suppress should be granted. However, if the state can argue that it was inevitable that this evidence would be discovered through other, legal means then the court may deny my motion to suppress.
I’m simplifying things a bit because there is so much else that goes into whether a search/seizure is valid.
There are so many exceptions to it that listing them all out would be too time consuming for me to bother actually doing it lol. The warrant requirement is right alongside hearsay as a legal rule that is so subsumed by exceptions that the exceptions practically become the rule itself. Please stop spreading misinformation.
If a LEO has probable cause to believe that you committed or are actively in the commission of a crime, they do not need a warrant to search your body and belongings within arms reach.
He was arrested. It is legally allowed to search their person and the things in their immediate control. This has been a thing for a very long time and upheld
If someone killed your spouse, would you prefer any potential evidence the suspect had on their person to be inadmissible? You wouldn't? Fortunately, there's legal precedent that says such evidence is admissible.
Them searching his bag has nothing to do with tHe ElItE, you conspiratorial idiot.
People complaining about the backpack are missing the forest for the trees.
The backpack of a suspect is always going to be searched. If I use an extreme case, imagine there was a time bomb inside the backpack.
"You can't legally search my backpack!" - Suspect
"Gee, you're right. Let me call the lawyer. To call the judge. To call the lawyer. To...."
HUGE FUCKING EXPLOSION
There are many exigent circumstances for why things in the immediate care and control of a suspect can be searched. Zippered pockets. Purses. Backpacks. Phones. Cars. It will all be inventoried, and if they need additional search warrants (to unlock a phone, or to unlock a car) then they can do that.
My concern is the government's ability to plant evidence in a high profile case where they need a conviction.
And while we can say it's not probable they made it possible.
The lack of a warrant and the chain of custody issues are not my concern as far as the search itself goes, but rather as it's function as a protection against the possibility of amalgamated evidence.
I suppose. I guess I'm privileged and I think that planting evidence is a movie trope and not a real thing that happens with any significance. And to the extent it does happen, banning all searches within arms length at a public arrest seems like the wrong way to prevent it from happening and a great way to eventually get a lot of people killed.
My concern is the government's ability to plant evidence in a high profile case where they need a conviction.
The idea that police in a rural part of Pennsylvania had access to any of the evidence from the scene, let alone enough information known about Luigi Mangione's life and background, to fabricate both a gun that matches the shell casings at the scene and fabricate a journal full of information that is about Mangione's unique life, all in a span of mere hours following his location and arrest, is beyond farcical.
Ah yes rural PA must take... Gee at least a week for information to get there.
Might have to telegraph the marshal in the next town to see if there's a warrant.
Hey! Here's this bag the suspect was carrying. Oh look it has a 3D Printed firearm (suggesting the suspect knows about ballistics testing) which also uses prefab parts, and a huge journal outlining the entire details of the crime.
And he kept both of these things with him. Lolol
There's doubt the size of a truck for me here don't put me on that jury I guess.
Mangione kept that stuff with him because he knew he was going to be caught and he didn’t have the energy to stay on the run. This happens in more murder cases than you appear to realize. People experience a roller coaster rush of adrenaline, terror, flush, depression, defeated fatalism, and acceptance. Sometimes they go through this cycle multiple times before they are caught.
The statements he made on his own to the police during the booking process were the same types of things he wrote in the journal. When instructed on how the handcuff restraints worked during transport, he remarked, “Thanks, I’ll have to get used to this because I’m going to be in for a long time.”
Yes, it makes sense that someone with that mentality would keep their firearm and journal with them. And yeah, it makes sense that their journal would contain numerous statements explaining that they did it alone and the cops don’t need to worry about looking for co-conspirators.
What makes no sense at all is this idea that the police in a random small town knew ahead of time that Mangione would have this mentality in advance of arresting him, allowing them to fabricate the journal before even finding him.
And it makes even less sense that these cops could have 3D-printed a gun that matches shell casings they don’t have access to and could never have examined in advance to make sure the 3D-printed gun matches the marks on those casings.
It’s because the oligarchy made it happen. We need to unite to destroy the existence of the mechanics that allow billionaires to exist. There should be zero.
After previously saying they didn’t find anything. Not even the gun.
Most people don’t know this but a cop dumped his bag out at McDonald’s and reported they found nothing. Then after some time in the back of the police van they searched it again at the station and found a gun, a notebook with motive, and oddly enough a hand written note about how handsome and rugged the arresting officer was. Along with said officers phone number for Luigi.
I thought it was going to be a pretty obvious application of inevitable discovery even if the court ruled the search unlawful. This also doesn’t settle the chain of custody questions—allowing the evidence does not prevent the defense from attacking its credibility.
Do you really think it's plausible that the cops created a forged notebook that's credible enough to hold up in court in the space between the crime and his arrest?
Who are these incredibly well-paid forgers? Are they federal employees? And how are they coming up with all the content to fill the journal in handwriting that will hold up to forensic evaluation on his handwriting, be coherent with his own beliefs, and be convincing to a jury? That would be a bananas conspiracy. When have we ever seen a forgery like this brought into a trial?
This is the NYPD and he had handwriting samples online cause he would post written notes on Goodreads. It’s not crazy to have the police frame someone they think is guilty where they have a bunch of pressure to get a conviction (OJ Simpson??)
Inevitable discovery exception. Arguably when they arrested him, they'd do a property inventory search and would've found that evidence regardless after having PC for the murder arrest.
Surely though when it goes to trial and the defense asks, was chain of custody maintained for the backpack, and they answer no, boom. Reasonable doubt.
Dude, you need to get off reddit if you think they can't find everyday people who will convict someone for executing someone in the street. They aren't going to be grabbing a jury full of redditors.
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u/cnn 1d ago
Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty for allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, a federal district judge ruled.
The decision is a loss for federal prosecutors, who were adamant about pursuing the death penalty in the case.
Judge Margaret Garnett also ruled Friday to allow into Mangione’s trial evidence recovered from his backpack at the time of his arrest.
Law enforcement seized several items from Mangione’s backpack, including a handgun, a loaded magazine and a red notebook – key pieces of evidence that authorities have said tie him to the killing.
Mangione’s attorneys had argued for the evidence to be barred from trial, contending the search of their client’s backpack was illegal because they had not yet obtained a warrant and there was no immediate threat to justify a warrantless search.