Mangione’s Counsel Challenge Constitutionality of Federal Death Penalty as Arbitrary

In a motion filed September 20, 2025, attor­neys for Luigi Mangione, indict­ed in the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have filed a broad chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, argu­ing that it is applied arbi­trar­i­ly, in vio­la­tion of Fifth Amendment’s due process pro­tec­tions and the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments. They are ask­ing the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York to dis­miss the indict­ment against their client or, alter­na­tive­ly, to strike the government’s notice to seek the death penalty. 

A pun­ish­ment that is admin­is­tered in an arbi­trary way — that is, imposed on some indi­vid­u­als but not oth­ers and with­out any valid jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the dif­fer­ence — has been found to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cru­el. In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court struck down all death penal­ty laws in the United States because their appli­ca­tion was found to be arbi­trary, in vio­la­tion of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court approved new statu­to­ry pro­ce­dures that were intend­ed to result in greater con­sis­ten­cy of appli­ca­tion. More than fifty years of evi­dence, how­ev­er, sug­gests that the pro­ce­dur­al reforms have not accom­plished their intend­ed goal. Data indi­cate that fac­tors such as race, pover­ty, geog­ra­phy, and — now more than ever — pol­i­tics, con­tin­ue to influ­ence or deter­mine who is sen­tenced to death and executed. 

Mr. Mangione’s attor­neys argue that “[t]he mod­ern death penal­ty presents a lot­tery no less arbi­trary and unfair than the penal­ty struck down in Furman.” The motion notes that ​“In the fif­teen years after the fed­er­al death penal­ty was reestab­lished in 1988, the United States car­ried out only three exe­cu­tions” and in the eigh­teen years that fol­lowed lead­ing up to 2020, ​“the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment car­ried out no exe­cu­tions at all[.]” 

Arguing that ​“whether a defen­dant was exe­cut­ed depend­ed on who hap­pened to hold the office of President at the time” the motion recounts the deci­sive­ly dif­fer­ent approach­es of Presidents Trump and Biden. After the pro­longed hia­tus in fed­er­al exe­cu­tions between 2003 and 2020, “[t]he Department of Justice, under President Trump, [] pro­ceed­ed to kill thir­teen con­vict­ed per­sons in the course of just six months begin­ning in July 2020.” They con­trast this with President Biden’s deci­sion to place a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2021, fol­lowed by his deci­sion to com­mute 37 out of the 40 pris­on­ers on fed­er­al death row in December 2024. Since tak­ing office again in 2025, President Trump has ​“announced that his Department of Justice would seek the death penal­ty in ​‘all appro­pri­ate cas­es,’ and would pri­or­i­tize the killing of ille­gal immi­grants and those con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing law enforce­ment offi­cers, appar­ent­ly with­out con­sid­er­a­tion of the spe­cif­ic facts of each case or ref­er­ence to any aggra­vat­ing or mitigating factors.” 

The motion also notes the decline in new death sen­tences over the past 30 years, remind­ing that when the Federal Death Penalty Act went into effect in 1994, ​“34 States and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment held 2,890 pris­on­ers under sen­tence of death” and com­par­ing that to the cur­rent day, where there are ​“a total of 2,044 per­sons on death row in 29 states, fed­er­al pris­ons, and U.S. military facilities.” 

Mr. Mangione’s attor­neys also detail 58 cas­es in their motion, con­trast­ing those for whom the gov­ern­ment sought death and those for whom they did not. They found “[n]o dis­cern­able log­i­cal basis [] for dis­tin­guish­ing between those defen­dants who were sen­tenced to death and those who were not.” They con­clude, “[b]eing sen­tenced to death in the fed­er­al sys­tem is tru­ly akin to being struck by light­ning.”