WASHINGTON — Federal Judge Margaret M. Garnett has dismissed two counts of Luigi Mangione’s federal indictment, ruling that prosecutors cannot pursue a potential death sentence in the case tied to the killing of Brian Thompson, the former UnitedHealthcare CEO. As of Jan. 30, the ruling eliminates the death penalty as a sentencing option. The Death Penalty Information Center broke down the decision in an analysis.
According to the center’s analysis, the ruling hinged on whether the Department of Justice could prove that Mangione’s crime was a “crime of violence.” However, this act is not the murder itself but another federal crime that occurred simultaneously. The center described the effort as “unprecedented,” given prior federal history and New York’s abolition of the death penalty.
The abolition of the death penalty in New York makes it difficult to impose capital punishment sentences unless in federal court. Federal death sentences are not common, with less than 1% of death sentences being under federal jurisdiction. Specific circumstances allow federal death penalties—for example, crimes committed on federal land or against federal prisoners.
However, according to the center, Mangione’s crime did not meet the most “common criteria for the federal death penalty … occurr[ing] on New York state land, with no alleged connection to drug or other organized criminal activity, against a person who was not a public official or employee.”
Despite this, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Justice Department to seek the death penalty using what the center called a “nesting doll” strategy. While Mangione’s crime is charged under a firearm statute, causing the loss of life with a firearm, he was also charged with a separate “predicate” “crime of violence” — stalking.
The center’s analysis highlighted the unusual nature of this strategy, comparing it to data from the Biden administration, which accounts for 40 people on federal death row. “None were sentenced solely on a firearm charge,” and all convictions were offenses explicitly stated to be “death eligible” under federal law, unlike stalking.
It was this question that landed in the Southern District judge’s court, ultimately resulting in a decision that stalking did not qualify as a “crime of violence.” According to the center, she used a “categorical approach” modeled after the Supreme Court, examining whether the “elements of the predicate crime ‘in general for all possible cases’” are sufficiently violent.
Judge Garnett offered hypotheticals to support her ruling, asking the court to consider a person who stalked and whose actions resulted in death but who did not commit any harm personally or intend to harm anyone. With this in mind, she ruled that the “stalking was not a ‘crime of violence’ sufficient to justify the firearms charges.”
The defense’s arguments were also dismissed as moot, including claims of Bondi’s “explicitly and unapologetically political” decision to seek the death penalty. The center further characterized the case as “marked by procedural irregularities.” The analysis cited numerous atypical developments during Mangione’s case, including a “staged ‘perp-walk,’” the refusal of mitigating evidence from the defense before authorization of death penalty prosecution, and Bondi’s public announcement of the capital punishment pursuit before indictment.
Federal prosecutors have until Feb. 27 to appeal Judge Garnett’s decision. Mangione has a trial set for Sept. 8.
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