On April 1st, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi directed prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the alleged suspect in the case of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot dead on December 4, 2024.
According to the Department of Justice, Mangione has been officially indicted for five federal charges as of April 17, 2025 — all of which he has not been required to enter a plea for. These charges include counts of using a firearm to commit murder, interstate stalking resulting in death, stalking through the use of interstate facilities resulting in death, and discharging a firearm that was equipped with a silencer. All of these charges have a maximum penalty of life in prison, except for the count of using a firearm to commit murder, which carries the maximum penalty of death. He has, however, pled not guilty to all state charges against him.
Mangione is currently being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Although the state of New York has deemed the death penalty unconstitutional, the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 authorizes capital punishment for 60 specific offenses. Since Mangione’s charges are of federal jurisdiction, they take precedence and override New York’s state policy.
Capital punishment has been controversial for decades due to the immense potential for racial profiling. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers points out that “the death row population is over 41% Black, even though Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population” (Prison Policy Initiative, 2016).
Additionally, many argue that the concept of the death penalty itself violates a human’s fundamental right to life. The American Civil Liberties Union is of the opinion that “a society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social problems – the worst possible example to set for the citizenry, and especially children.”
Despite the practice having a controversial public opinion, President Trump has issued an executive order to encourage the use of capital punishment.
His official order states that the “Attorney General shall encourage State attorneys general and district attorneys to bring State capital charges for all capital crimes with special attention to the crimes, regardless of whether the federal trial results in a capital sentence.”
Bondi has subsequently directed Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky to seek the death penalty for Mangione.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America. After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” said Bondi in her official statement.
In response, Mangione’s defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo has stated that seeking the death penalty in this case is “not dysfunctional but barbaric,” going on to state that Mangione “is caught in a high-stakes game of tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors, except the trophy is a young man’s life,” Agnifilo’s statement said.
Agnifilo and the rest of Mangione’s defense lawyers are currently arguing against the Justice Department’s validity in seeking the death penalty, claiming that the protocols by which they obtained evidence violated Mangione’s right to due process.
Since Mangione was originally apprehended and arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he will also have to be tried under the Pennsylvania charges of carrying an unlicensed firearm, forgery, and providing false identification to police. However, as aforementioned, his lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss these charges on the grounds that the Altoona police conducted an illegal search of Mangione’s backpack without a warrant or reading him his Miranda rights. Agnifilo is looking to exclude similar evidence in the New York case as well.
Mangione’s federal arraignment is slated for April 25th, 2025, with state hearings likely being held in late June. These pre-trial hearings will likely cover what evidence will be brought to the actual proceedings, but many aspects of the case itself are subject to change throughout these hearings.
