Federal prosecutors say Bondi’s comments shouldn’t affect Luigi Mangione’s death penalty case

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors said Friday that Luigi Mangione’s death penalty case in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson should carry on unimpeded, urging a judge to reject a defense push to dismiss charges and rule out capital punishment over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s public statements suggesting Mangione deserves execution.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan also asked U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to deny the defense’s bid to suppress certain evidence collected during the arrest last year, including a 9 mm handgun, a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive and statements he made to police.

“Pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect,” prosecutors wrote in a 121-page court filing, citing prior rulings from the Supreme Court and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As for the evidence, which Mangione’s lawyers contend was collected without a warrant and without him being read his rights, prosecutors said police officers were justified in searching the suspect’s backpack to make sure there were no dangerous items. His statements to officers, they said, were made voluntarily and before he was taken into police custody.

Rather than dismissing the case outright or barring the government from seeking the death penalty, prosecutors argued, the defense’s concerns can best be alleviated by carefully questioning prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case and ensuring Mangione’s rights are respected at trial.

“What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.”

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges.

In September a judge threw out state terrorism charges against him but kept the rest of that case — including an intentional murder charge — in place. He is due back in court in the state case Dec. 1 as his lawyers seek to bar prosecutors from using much of the same evidence seized upon his arrest.

Mangione’s next court date in the federal case is Jan. 9.

Thompson, 50, was killed Dec. 4, 2024, as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

Bondi announced in April that she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally indicted that capital punishment is warranted for a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

The defense argued in a September court filing that Bondi’s announcement — which she followed with Instagram posts and a TV appearance — showed the decision was “based on politics, not merit.” They also said her remarks tainted the grand jury process that resulted in his indictment a few weeks later.

Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed perp walk that saw Mangione led up a Manhattan pier by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s flouting of established death penalty procedures — “have violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and have fatally prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers said.

Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented run of 13 executions at the end of his first term, has also offered opinions about Mangione despite court rules against any pretrial publicity that could interfere with the right to a fair trial.

“He shot someone in the back, as clear as you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you. He shot — he looked like a pure assassin,” Trump told Fox News in September.

In their Friday filing, federal prosecutors countered that Bondi’s remarks were irrelevant to the process because there’s no evidence that grand jurors who voted to indict Mangione were influenced.

“This argument, like others, rests on conjecture rather than evidence,” the prosecution team said.

Nor has the defense cited any precedent “suggesting that public commentary renders a grand jury incapable of fulfilling its constitutional role,” they added.