{"id":109804,"date":"2026-01-23T14:38:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/109804\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T14:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:38:26","slug":"luigi-mangione-is-due-in-court-as-judge-weighs-legality-of-police-seizing-his-backpack-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/109804\/","title":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione is due in court as judge weighs legality of police seizing his backpack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luigi Mangione\u00a0is set to return to court on Friday as a judge weighs whether to allow or exclude certain evidence from his federal death penalty case in the killing of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

US District Judge Margaret Garnett wants to hear testimony about procedures that police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, said allowed them to seize and look through Mangione\u2019s backpack when they arrested him on Dec. 9, 2024, five days after Thompson\u2019s death in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Garnett said the hearing will be limited to just one witness: an officer from the Altoona police department.<\/p>\n

Luigi Mangione appears in court in Manhattan alongside his lawyer on Dec. 12, 2025. William Farrington Pool<\/p>\n

The city is about 230 miles west of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

That officer called to testify must have \u201csufficient authority and experience to testify about the established or standardized procedures in use\u201d at the time of Mangione\u2019s arrest \u201cfor securing, safeguarding, and, if applicable, inventorying the personal property of a person arrested in a public place,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

Because the hearing will focus on procedures, the officer being called as a witness \u201cneed not have had any personal involvement\u201d in Mangione\u2019s arrest, Garnett said.<\/p>\n

Mangione is also scheduled to be in court again in the federal case\u00a0on Jan. 30<\/a>\u00a0for a status conference. Garnett has said jury selection in his trial could begin as early as September.<\/p>\n

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges, which carry the possibility of life in prison.<\/p>\n

Mangione\u2019s lawyers want Garnett to bar prosecutors from using certain items found in the backpack, including a gun police said matched the one used to kill Thompson<\/a> and a notebook in which Mangione purportedly described his intent to \u201cwack\u201d a health insurance executive.<\/p>\n

Mangione is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

Echoing their arguments at a recent state court hearing, they contend the search was illegal because police had not yet obtained a warrant. The judge in the state case said he\u2019ll rule on evidence issues in May.<\/p>\n

Thompson was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group\u2019s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind.<\/p>\n

Officers began searching the backpack at the McDonald\u2019s restaurant where Mangione\u00a0was arrested<\/a>\u00a0while eating breakfast.<\/p>\n

Bodycam images show Mangione\u2019s arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald\u2019s. Southern District of New York<\/p>\n

Mangione\u00a0is set to return to court on Friday as a judge weighs whether to allow or exclude certain evidence from his federal death penalty case in the killing of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Southern District of New York<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say officers searched the bag legally because Altoona police protocols require promptly searching a suspect\u2019s property at the time of arrest for dangerous items and police later obtained a warrant.<\/p>\n

Among the items found at the McDonald\u2019s, according to officer testimony at a recent court hearing, was a loaded gun magazine.<\/p>\n

Officers continued searching the bag at a police station and found the gun and silencer.<\/p>\n

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They performed what\u2019s known as an inventory search and found the notebook and other notes, including what appeared to be to-do lists and possible getaway plans, according to testimony.<\/p>\n

That search, which involves cataloging every piece of a suspect\u2019s seized property<\/a>, is also required under Altoona police policy, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n

Laws concerning how police obtain search warrants are complex and often disputed in criminal cases.<\/p>\n

As part of her inquiry, Garnett ordered federal prosecutors to provide her with a copy of the affidavit submitted to obtain a federal search warrant in the matter.<\/p>\n

Mangione\u2019s lawyers contend that searching the backpack before getting a warrant may have influenced how the affidavit was written, but prosecutors say no specific details about items, such as the notebook writings, were mentioned in the document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione\u00a0is set to return to court on Friday as a judge weighs whether to allow or exclude…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[8307,6972,23519,6974,75,84,83,238,9,24,63,4721,58],"class_list":["post-109804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-assassinations","tag-brian-thompson","tag-death-penalty","tag-luigi-mangione","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-murders","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-trials","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}