{"id":94750,"date":"2026-01-09T14:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94750\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T14:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:19:10","slug":"luigi-mangiones-lawyers-seek-to-block-death-penalty-in-pivotal-nyc-federal-court-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94750\/","title":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione’s lawyers seek to block death penalty in pivotal NYC federal court hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luigi Mangione is set to appear in a New York City federal courtroom on Friday as his lawyers try to bar the Justice Department from seeking the death penalty<\/a> for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pivotal hearing will mark Mangione’s first federal court appearance since he pleaded not guilty<\/a>\u00a0to murder and stalking charges at his arraignment in April 2025.<\/p>\n

Protesters against the death penalty are expected to rally outside the Manhattan courthouse for the 11 a.m. hearing, as Mangione’s court appearances often\u00a0attract a crowd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mangione’s attorneys say case is tainted<\/p>\n

Mangione’s defense attorneys say authorities prejudiced the case against him by turning his arrest<\/a> for the 2024 shooting into a “Marvel movie spectacle.”<\/p>\n

They have presented a few arguments as to why this should not be a federal death penalty case<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"UnitedHealthcare<\/p>\n

Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in New York.<\/p>\n

William Farrington \/ AP<\/p>\n

Mangione’s lawyers argue that authorities prejudiced the case by turning his perp walk into a highly choreographed spectacle and declaring their desire to see him executed before formally indicting him<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also claim Attorney General Pam Bondi’s previous job with Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm whose clients include UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, is a conflict of interest<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They allege Bondi violated an agreement when she took office<\/a> to bow out of any matters related to Ballard Partners for at least one year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutors deny Bondi has conflict of interest<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors slammed the defense’s claims as meritless and misleading, arguing there is no conflict of interest with the attorney general because there is no present or future financial gain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also argue that pretrial publicity, even when intense, is hardly a constitutional crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mangione’s lawyers are also fighting to block federal prosecutors from introducing certain key evidence into the trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another judge is currently deciding\u00a0whether to allow the evidence<\/a> into Mangione’s New York murder trial after a crucial pretrial hearing in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione is set to appear in a New York City federal courtroom on Friday as his lawyers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6974,9,24,55,54,56,2038],"class_list":["post-94750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-luigi-mangione","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-pam-bondi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94750","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=94750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}