New Analysis: Why the Death Penalty is Off the Table for Luigi Mangione

On January 30, a fed­er­al judge ruled that Luigi Mangione can­not face the death penal­ty in his upcom­ing tri­al for the mur­der of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. She dis­missed two counts from his fed­er­al indict­ment, one of which car­ried the death penal­ty as a poten­tial sen­tence. Described by The New York Times as ​“a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to revive the use of the death penal­ty in fed­er­al cas­es,” this deci­sion inval­i­dates a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion that data and legal analy­sis show was a historical anomaly. 

The American death penal­ty is over­whelm­ing­ly a state pre­rog­a­tive. Since 1972, 98.8% of peo­ple sen­tenced to death were sen­tenced in state courts, com­pared to just 0.9% by fed­er­al courts and 0.3% by the U.S. mil­i­tary. Most mur­ders do not qual­i­fy for pros­e­cu­tion in fed­er­al court. Only cer­tain cir­cum­stances, autho­rized by statute, allow the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to assume juris­dic­tion and seek a death sen­tence, such as crimes that occur on fed­er­al land, are com­mit­ted by fed­er­al pris­on­ers, or which tar­get elect­ed offi­cials. Some offens­es, like drug traf­fick­ing, bank rob­bery, and acts of ter­ror­ism, are also eli­gi­ble for a fed­er­al death sen­tence when those activ­i­ties result in death.

New York abol­ished the death penal­ty in 2007, so Mr. Mangione could only face a pos­si­ble death sen­tence if the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment assert­ed its juris­dic­tion and proved he had com­mit­ted a death-eli­gi­ble offense. But the mur­der of Brian Thompson plain­ly did not meet the most com­mon cri­te­ria for the fed­er­al death penal­ty. It occurred on New York state land, with no alleged con­nec­tion to drug or oth­er orga­nized crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, against a per­son who was not a pub­lic offi­cial or employee. 

Yet Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on April 1, 2025 that she was direct­ing the Department of Justice to seek a fed­er­al death sen­tence for Mr. Mangione. The Department of Justice then filed cap­i­tal charges against Mr. Mangione under the fed­er­al firearms statute. Mr. Mangione was accused of caus­ing death through the use of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 924(j)(1), while com­mit­ting an under­ly­ing fed­er­al ​“crime of vio­lence” under § 924(c)(1)(A). Like a nest­ing doll, this would allow the DOJ to seek a death sen­tence for the mur­der of Mr. Thompson, so long as it could estab­lish that Mr. Mangione com­mit­ted a sep­a­rate qual­i­fy­ing fed­er­al crime ​“dur­ing and in rela­tion to” the murder. 

The DOJ argued that the fed­er­al ​“crime of vio­lence”— the ​“pred­i­cate” offense that would allow it to seek a death sen­tence — was stalk­ing. Mr. Mangione was charged with inter­state trav­el and use of elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices for the pur­pos­es of stalk­ing Mr. Thompson under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A. These are fed­er­al offens­es because they require the per­pe­tra­tor to phys­i­cal­ly or dig­i­tal­ly cross state lines. 

New research by the Death Penalty Information Center con­firms the unprece­dent­ed nature of these charges. Of the 40 pris­on­ers on fed­er­al death row at the time of Mr. Thompson’s killing in December 2024 — before President Biden com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 37 pris­on­ers lat­er that month — none were sen­tenced to death sole­ly under a firearms charge.¹ About half had no firearms charges what­so­ev­er, and the oth­er half com­mit­ted at least one oth­er inde­pen­dent offense that qual­i­fied for a fed­er­al death sen­tence such as bank rob­bery, car­jack­ing, kid­nap­ping, drug traf­fick­ing, or rack­e­teer­ing result­ing in death. Unlike stalk­ing, all these crimes were explic­it­ly death-eli­gi­ble under federal law. 

The fed­er­al death penal­ty already has a well-doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of arbi­trari­ness, racial bias, and oth­er con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns. In its 2024 report Fool’s Gold, DPI high­light­ed how the fed­er­al death penal­ty has been ​“a tool his­tor­i­cal­ly used by the gov­ern­ment to intim­i­date and sub­ju­gate peo­ple of col­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly Black and Native American com­mu­ni­ties.” The ​“most active death-sen­tenc­ing fed­er­al juris­dic­tions were once the nation’s lead­ers of extra-judicial lynchings.”

U.S. District Court Judge Margaret M. Garnett of the Southern District of New York was faced with deter­min­ing whether stalk­ing qual­i­fied as a ​“crime of vio­lence” for fed­er­al juris­dic­tion pur­pos­es. Using the ​“cat­e­gor­i­cal approach” estab­lished by the Supreme Court, she found that it did not. To deter­mine whether a pred­i­cate crime is suf­fi­cient­ly ​“violen[t],” this approach looks not to the spe­cif­ic facts of a case like Mr. Mangione’s, but to the ele­ments of the pred­i­cate crime ​“in gen­er­al for all pos­si­ble cas­es,” ask­ing whether those ele­ments inher­ent­ly meet the require­ments of vio­lent force. She offered sev­er­al hypo­thet­i­cal sce­nar­ios where a per­son could be con­vict­ed of stalk­ing result­ing in death with­out them­selves com­mit­ting any vio­lent acts or hav­ing the req­ui­site intent to harm the vic­tim. Accordingly, she ruled that stalk­ing was not a ​“crime of vio­lence” suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the firearms charges — and thus the death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty — in the case. 

Judge Garnett dis­missed the defense’s oth­er chal­lenges to the use of the death penal­ty as moot, includ­ing the argu­ment that AG Bondi’s deci­sion to seek death for Mr. Mangione was ​“explic­it­ly and unapolo­get­i­cal­ly polit­i­cal.” The case was already marked by pro­ce­dur­al irreg­u­lar­i­ties, includ­ing state and fed­er­al offi­cials togeth­er con­duct­ing a staged ​“perp walk” of Mr. Mangione in front of press, in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al court prece­dent; AG Bondi’s refusal to allow the defense to inves­ti­gate and sub­mit mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence before autho­riz­ing pros­e­cu­tors to seek a death sen­tence; and AG Bondi’s unusu­al pub­lic announce­ment that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors would seek the death penal­ty before Mr. Mangione was even indict­ed, which the defense con­tend­ed vio­lat­ed laws pro­tect­ing grand jury secre­cy. In her pub­lic order, AG Bondi open­ly stat­ed that seek­ing death for Mr. Mangione would ​“car­ry out President Trump’s agen­da to stop vio­lent crime and Make America Safe Again.” This was the first case for which the new admin­is­tra­tion sought the death penal­ty, fol­low­ing President Trump’s day-one Executive Order direct­ing the expan­sion of cap­i­tal punishment nationally. 

Judge Garnett gave fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors until February 27 to appeal her deci­sion. The stalk­ing charges that remain car­ry a max­i­mum sen­tence of life with­out parole. Judge Garnett also denied a defense motion to exclude evi­dence recov­ered from a back­pack seized dur­ing Mr. Mangione’s arrest. His fed­er­al tri­al is cur­rent­ly set to begin on September 8. 

Research assis­tance by Fatime Niane.