Prosecutors will not be able to seek the death penalty for accused killer Luigi Mangione, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Mangione is accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024.
Thompson, 50, was gunned down — shot in the back — outside a Manhattan hotel as he was heading to an early morning meeting.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed two counts against Mangione: murder through use of a firearm, which carries a potential death sentence, and a related firearms offense, according to NBC News.
Mangione will only face two federal stalking counts, which can have a maximum sentence of life without parole.
Mangione also faces state murder charges, but New York state does not have the death penalty.
Garnett said the federal murder charge could only be brought if it took place during a “crime of violence.” She said the stalking charges filed by the Department of Justice did not meet that standard.
“The analysis contained in the balance of this opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law,” Garnett wrote.
“But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case,” the federal judge added. “The law must be the Court’s only concern,” she wrote.
She said her required approach might appear to yield “questionable results that defy common sense,” but said she was “duty bound” to follow guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.
She said the ruling was made “solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment,” she wrote, according to the Gothamist.
Newer: No death penalty for Luigi Mangione — a federal judge dropped Counts 3 and 4 of the indictment.
More coming @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/PGkMmf2M6U
— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) January 30, 2026
It was not clear Friday whether the Department of Justice would appeal the ruling.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Mangione in April, NBC noted.
Garnett also ruled Friday that items recovered from the suspect’s backpack when he was arrested can be admitted during his trial, according to CNN.
A handgun, a loaded magazine, and a red notebook were seized at the time.
The gun is consistent with the one that shot Thompson, prosecutors have said.
They said some notebook entries “express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular.”
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