Luigi Mangione spoke out in court Friday against the prospect of back-to-back trials over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, telling a judge: \u201cIt\u2019s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mangione, 27, made the remarks as court officers escorted him out of the courtroom after a judge scheduled his state murder trial to begin June 8, three months before jury selection in his federal case.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Luigi Mangione spoke out in court Friday against the prospect of back-to-back murder trials
\n
He told Judge Gregory Carro,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition\u201d
\n
Mangione made the remarks as he was being escorted out of the courtroom after a judge scheduled his state murder trial for June 8<\/p>\n
Judge Gregory Carro, matter-of-fact in his decision after a lengthy discussion with prosecutors and defense lawyers at the bench, said the state trial could be delayed until Sept 8 if an appeal delays the federal trial.<\/p>\n
Mangione\u2019s lawyers objected to the June trial date, telling Carro that at that time, they’ll be consumed with preparing for the federal trial, which involves allegations that Mangione stalked Thompson before killing him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Mangione is being put in an untenable situation,” defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said. “This is a tug-of-war between two different prosecution offices.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defense will not be ready on June 8,” she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe ready,\u201d Carro replied.<\/p>\n
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges, both of which carry the possibility of life in prison. Last week, the judge in the federal case ruled that prosecutors\u00a0can\u2019t seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Wearing a tan jail suit, Mangione sat quietly at the defense table until his outburst at the end of the hearing.<\/p>\n
Jury selection in the federal case is\u00a0set for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13.<\/p>\n
As the trial calendar began to take shape, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann sent a letter to Carro asking him to begin the New York trial on July 1. The prosecutor argued that the state\u2019s interests \u201cwould be unfairly prejudiced by an unnecessary delay\u201d until after the federal trial.<\/p>\n
When Mangione was arrested, federal prosecutors said anticipated that the state trial would go first. Seidemann told Carro on Friday that Thompson\u2019s family has also expressed a desire to see the state trial happen first.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears the federal government has reneged on its agreement to let the state, which has done most of the work in this case, go first,\u201d Carro said Friday.<\/p>\n
Scheduling the state trial first could help Manhattan prosecutors avoid double jeopardy issues. Under New York law, the district attorney\u2019s office could be barred from trying Mangione if his federal trial happens first.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. The cases involve different charges but the same alleged course of conduct.<\/p>\n
Mangione isn\u2019t due in court again in the state case until May, when Carro is expected to rule on a defense request to exclude certain evidence that prosecutors say connects Mangione to the killing.<\/p>\n
Those items include\u00a0a 9 mm handgun\u00a0that prosecutors say matches the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which they say he described his intent to \u201cwack\u201d a health insurance executive.<\/p>\n
Last week, Garnett ruled that prosecutors can use those items at that trial.<\/p>\n
In September, Carro\u00a0threw out state terrorism charges\u00a0but kept the rest of the case, including an intentional murder charge.<\/p>\n
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group\u2019s annual investor conference.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say \u201cdelay,\u201d \u201cdeny\u201d and \u201cdepose\u201d were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.<\/p>\n
Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family,\u00a0was arrested five days later\u00a0at a McDonald\u2019s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione spoke out in court Friday against the prospect of back-to-back trials over the killing of UnitedHealthcare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10015,117,387,25,118,303,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,27],"class_list":["post-125840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-crime","tag-app-for-your-consideration","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-crime","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125840","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=125840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}