By Jack Queen<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) \u2013 Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down a health insurance executive outside a hotel in Manhattan, is due in federal court on \u200dFriday as a judge considers whether key pieces of evidence should be included in the death penalty murder case.<\/p>\n
Mangione, 27, is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan. Public officials condemned the shocking assassination, but Mangione became a folk hero of sorts \u200cto some Americans who decry steep healthcare costs \u200cand insurance practices.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty to murder, stalking and weapons charges and will appear in custody at Friday\u2019s hearing before U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Mangione\u2019s lawyers argue prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office \u200bfor the Southern District of New York should be barred from using evidence found in Mangione\u2019s backpack \u2014 including a 9-millimeter pistol, \u200dsilencer, and journal entries \u2014 because police illegally \u200bsearched it without a warrant.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have argued that police \u200bofficers in Altoona, Pennsylvania did not need a warrant because they had \u200dlawfully arrested Mangione for providing fake identification and were legally permitted to search the bag for dangerous items before transporting it.<\/p>\n
Garnett has ordered an Altoona Police Department officer to testify at Friday\u2019s hearing about the department\u2019s standard procedures for securing, safeguarding and inventorying a \u200dperson\u2019s property when they are arrested in a public place.<\/p>\n
Mangione\u2019s lawyers are separately asking Garnett to throw out an indictment against Mangione over purported \u200dlegal deficiencies, or block \u200dprosecutors from seeking the death penalty over alleged \u200bviolations of Mangione\u2019s constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
Garnett has scheduled jury \u200bselection \u2060for early September.<\/p>\n
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murder \u200cand other charges in a separate case brought by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.<\/p>\n
The judge overseeing that case is also weighing a request by Mangione\u2019s lawyers to suppress evidence from the backpack. A trial date has not been set.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York, Editing \u2060by Franklin Paul)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jack Queen NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) \u2013 Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-110018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110018","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=110018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}