U.S. Department of Justice Will Not Seek Death Penalty in Trial of Vance Boelter, Accused of Killing Minnesota State Lawmaker

A spokesper­son for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will not seek a death sen­tence for Vance Boelter, the man accused of killing Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her hus­band, Mark Hortman. Mr. Boelter is charged with their mur­ders and stalk­ing, but DOJ said that stalk­ing like­ly would not meet the def­i­n­i­tion of a ​“crime of vio­lence,” which would be nec­es­sary to secure a fed­er­al death sen­tence. Mr. Boelter also faces state charges, but Minnesota does not autho­rize the death penal­ty under state law.

The DOJ announce­ment comes short­ly after a fed­er­al judge in New York ruled that Luigi Mangione could not face a fed­er­al death sen­tence in his tri­al for the mur­der of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. As in Mr. Boelter’s case, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors had charged Mr. Mangione with stalk­ing and mur­der. 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. U.S. District Court Judge Margaret M. Garnett of the Southern District of New York ruled that stalk­ing was not a ​​“crime of vio­lence” suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the firearms charges — and thus the death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty — in the case.

In an inter­view with KSTP news, law pro­fes­sor Mark Osler, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, not­ed that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors like­ly would have found it dif­fi­cult to obtain a death sen­tence in the case. ​“We are not a death penal­ty state. We haven’t had the death penal­ty in over 100 years in Minnesota,” Mr. Osler said. ​“They’re going to have a Minnesota jury, and the chance of los­ing that death penal­ty case, I think, was very high. I think they would prob­a­bly win a con­vic­tion for mur­der, but prob­a­bly not obtain the death penalty.” 

A DPI analy­sis con­duct­ed in February 2026 found that, 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. 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.