Posted on 01/30/2026 12:15:56 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a federal judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it technically flawed. She wrote that she did so to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury” as it weighs whether to convict Mangione.
Garnett also dismissed a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
In a win for prosecutors, Garnett ruled they can use evidence collected from his backpack during his arrest, including a 9mm handgun and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive. Mangione’s lawyers had sought to exclude those items, arguing the search was illegal because police hadn’t yet obtained a warrant.
During a hearing Friday, Garnett gave prosecutors 30 days to update her on whether they’ll appeal her death penalty decision. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the federal case, declined to comment.
Garnett acknowledged that the decision “may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law.” But, she said, it reflected her “committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to...
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Another Fake judge that’s makes decisions on Politics
They’ll appeal it.
CC
Just-Us remains multi-tiered.
Can we give the death penalty to leftard Judges careers? She should be BARred from having anything to do with the Law, including being a paralegal, for life.
“Judge Margaret, the Court needs to know if the rumor is true, that the walls of your private inner office are plastered with close up photos of the defendant, aka
Luigi (Eyebrows) Mangione? Each photo is said to bear a large, sloppy wet lipstick kiss on it. This may be seen by the jury as ‘an extenuating circumstance’.
This judge, like most of the left, is diabolically evil!
Why not just rule that they can only sentence him to community service, since you clearly want him to get off easy, "judge".
He’s on video sneaking up behind a man and shooting him in the back. In broad daylight, on a public street.
Big time!
DUMBASS WOMAN JUDGE.
So for death penalty purposes, the first crime of violence doesn’t count? Have to commit two?
But for life imprisonment, one crime of violence is sufficient?
Do we need some public service announcements so that people will understand that even though one crime of violence is okay for some purposes, it’s not okay for others. Perhaps Luigi should be set free because this distinction wasn’t made clear to him.
Is the federal law here clear on this point about getting a mulligan on the first crime of violence. That couldn’t have been easy to draft.
Bad ruling. Apparently, he dismissed the charges becuase they are legally incompatible with the stalking charges he faces. Maybe the government should drop the stalking charges.
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