Trump’s DOJ Seeks Death Penalty Against Luigi Mangione

Attorney General Pamela Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing health insurance executive Brian Thompson. 

The U.S. Department of Justice said the “murder was an act of political violence.”

On Dec. 4, a gunman shot and killed Thompson as he was on his way to an investors meeting in Manhattan. At the time of his death, his annual compensation package was worth over $10 million. On Dec. 9, Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland charged Mangione with numerous offenses, including one capital crime, using a firearm to commit murder. A capital charge means that a prosecutor has the discretion to seek a death sentence.

Under DOJ practices at the time, prosecutors rarely sought the death penalty, and no executions were carried out during Biden’s term. On her first day in office, Bondi rescinded limits on capital punishment and encouraged federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty whenever possible, except in cases with “significant mitigating circumstances.” 

Mangione has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Detainees, advocates, and civil rights lawyers have long condemned the conditions at the jail. In August, a judge refused to send an elderly man to the jail to serve his sentence because of the facility’s “dangerous, barbaric conditions.” A report from the DOJ Inspector General found that jail officials had mismanaged a power outage in the winter of 2019, which left detainees with little or no heat for a week during one of the coldest times of the year.  

In the wake of Thompson’s death, Americans have rallied around Mangione and condemned the health insurance industry, which routinely denies medical procedures and medications, jeopardizing people’s lives and plunging their customers into crushing debt. 

In addition to federal charges, Mangione also faces seven state-level charges filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. If convicted in state court, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2004, the New York Court of Appeals declared the state’s death penalty statute unconstitutional.  

In a December statement, Mangione’s lead attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo criticized the duplicate charges, saying they may violate constitutional protections.

“The federal government’s reported decision to pile on top of an already overcharged first-degree murder and state terror case is highly unusual and raises serious constitutional and statutory double jeopardy concerns. We are ready to fight these charges in whatever court they are brought,” Agnifilo said.

Agnifilo condemned the DOJ’s announcement in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

“By seeking to murder Luigi Mangione, the Justice Department has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric. Their decision to execute Luigi is political and goes against the recommendation of the local federal prosecutors, the law, and historical precedent,” Agnifilo said. “While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi. By doing this, they are defending the broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry that continues to terrorize the American people.”