{"id":96017,"date":"2026-01-10T21:06:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/96017\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T21:06:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:06:50","slug":"mangiones-trial-could-start-before-the-end-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/96017\/","title":{"rendered":"Mangione\u2019s trial could start before the end of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luigi Mangione\u2019s federal death penalty trial in the killing of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson<\/a>\u00a0could begin before the end of the year, a judge said Friday while weighing a defense bid to bar the government from making it a capital case.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said she expects Mangione\u2019s trial to begin in December \u2014 or possibly January 2027, as federal prosecutors suggested \u2014 if the death penalty is still on the table. If not, she said, Mangione could stand trial in October.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Luigi Mangione\u2019s federal death penalty trial in the killing of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson\u00a0could begin before the end of the year, a judge said Friday while weighing a defense bid to bar the government from making it a capital case
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U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said she expects Mangione\u2019s trial to begin in December \u2014 or possibly January 2027, as federal prosecutors suggested \u2014 if the death penalty is still on the table. If not, she said, Mangione could stand trial in October
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The judge said she would rule at a later date on the defense’s requests to prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, throw out some charges and exclude certain evidence. Another pretrial conference is scheduled for Jan. 30<\/p>\n

Either way, Garnett said, she expects jury selection to begin around Sept. 8. No trial date has been scheduled in Mangione\u2019s parallel state murder case. Prosecutors previously said they anticipated the state trial to be first.<\/p>\n

Garnett said she would issue a written schedule after looking at her calendar and reviewing notes of conversations she’s had with the court\u2019s jury coordinator.<\/p>\n

The judge said she would rule at a later date on the defense’s requests to prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, throw out some charges and exclude certain evidence. Another pretrial conference is scheduled for Jan. 30.<\/p>\n

Mangione\u2019s lawyers contend that authorities prejudiced his case by turning\u00a0his December 2024 arrest<\/a>\u00a0into a \u201cMarvel movie\u201d spectacle and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed even before he was formally indicted.<\/p>\n

At the same time, they are asking Garnett to throw out two of the four charges against him, including the murder by firearm charge that has enabled the government to seek the death penalty. They argue that it is legally flawed.<\/p>\n

Federal\u00a0prosecutors say<\/a>\u00a0Mangione\u2019s lawyers are wrong on both fronts, countering that the murder charge is legally sufficient and that \u201cpretrial publicity, even when intense\u201d is hardly a constitutional crisis. Any concerns about public perceptions can be alleviated by carefully questioning prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case, prosecutors wrote in a court filing.<\/p>\n

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

Friday’s hearing was Mangione\u2019s first trip to Manhattan federal court\u00a0since his April 25 arraignment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre<\/a>\u00a0for people upset with the health insurance industry, Mangione again drew supporters to the courthouse. Some wore green clothing and carried signs such as \u201cFree Luigi” and \u201cNo Death For Luigi Mangione.”<\/p>\n

Mangione, wearing a beige jail uniform, was attentive but didn\u2019t speak once during the nearly three-hour proceeding. After entering the courtroom, he greeted his lead attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, with handshakes. He nodded along while reading documents, sometimes sipping from a plastic water bottle.<\/p>\n

In addition to the death penalty issue, Garnett is weighing a defense request \u2014 similar to one in his state case \u2014 to bar the government from using certain items found in a backpack during his arrest. The defense argues that the search was illegal because police had not yet obtained a warrant.<\/p>\n

Those items include a gun that police said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which Mangione purportedly described his intent to \u201cwack\u201d a health insurance executive.<\/p>\n

Garnett said she is not inclined to hold a separate hearing on the evidence issue\u00a0like one last month that took three weeks<\/a>\u00a0in Mangione\u2019s state murder case. The judge in that case said he won\u2019t rule until May.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors contend police were justified in searching the backpack to make sure there were no dangerous items and that the gun, notebook and other evidence would have eventually been found anyway.<\/p>\n

Thompson, 50, was killed 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. 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, 27, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family,\u00a0was arrested five days later<\/a>\u00a0at a McDonald\u2019s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

He’s already had success paring down his state case. In September, a judge\u00a0threw out state terrorism charges<\/a>\u00a0against him.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last year that she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring that capital punishment was warranted for a \u201cpremeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mangione\u2019s lawyers argue that Bondi\u2019s announcement, which she followed with Instagram posts and a TV appearance, showed the decision was \u201cbased on politics, not merit.\u201d Her remarks tainted the grand jury process that resulted in his indictment a few weeks later, they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione\u2019s federal death penalty trial in the killing of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson\u00a0could begin before the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10015,117,387,25,118,303,75,84,83,9,24,12,110,63,308,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-96017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-app-crime","9":"tag-app-for-your-consideration","10":"tag-app-public-safety","11":"tag-app-top-stories","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-manhattan","15":"tag-manhattan-headlines","16":"tag-manhattan-news","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nnt","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-public-safety","23":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96017","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=96017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}