Luigi Mangione should be tried in state court, Manhattan DA says
Luigi Mangione should be tried in state court because it would hold him accountable for a different kind of "harm or evil" than his guilty plea in federal court, the Manhattan district attorney's office argued Friday in a new court filing.
The district attorney's office opposed Mangione's attempt to dismiss his state indictment, which charged him with murdering UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in December 2024.
In August, Mangione pleaded guilty to traveling to New York with the intent to shoot Thompson, admitting, "On the morning of December 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died."
He pleaded guilty to both federal stalking counts and U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett accepted the plea.
The district attorney's office argued Mangione's August admission in federal court is insufficient to preclude a state trial because stalking and murder are two different crimes.
Mangione's attorneys had filed a motion to dismiss the charges in state court under New York's double jeopardy law.
"New York law does not permit a person to be prosecuted and punished twice for the exact same crime under a statute that governs successive prosecutions," defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo told reporters in August.
Mangione pleaded not guilty in his state case and had been set to go on trial on charges of murder in the second-degree, criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second-degree, and multiple other charges.
The judge is expected to issue a ruling on the state trial in December. Mangione is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court that month, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
