Luigi Mangione escapes federal death penalty after federal prosecutors decline to appeal judge's ruling

Luigi Mangione has escaped the death penalty. 

The accused killer's life will be spared after federal prosecutors said Friday they will not appeal a judge's ruling to quash capital punishment against him. 

In a letter, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District said it accepts U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett‘s Jan. 30 decision to dismiss a death penalty-eligible murder charge against Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson Dec. 4, 2024.

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Despite not being tried on murder charges, Mangione still faces two federal stalking charges. 

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Sept. 8.  Opening statements will begin in October.

Mangione, 27, also faces life in prison at a separate murder trial in state court slated to begin in June. He has pleaded not guilty to Thompson's killing. 

To charge Mangione with the federal count of murder through use of a gun, prosecutors need an underlying crime of violence, Garnett said in her January ruling. 

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Garnett wrote that she was bound by Supreme Court precedent.

"Over the course of the last two decades or so, the Supreme Court has embarked upon a legal journey, explained herein, that now requires lower courts to engage in an analysis totally divorced from the conduct at issue and centered on the hypothetically least serious conduct that the charged crime could possibly cover," she wrote.

Surveillance cameras recorded the slaying. Video footage showed Thompson walking down a Manhattan sidewalk outside a hotel when a gunman approached him from behind and opened fire.

Thompson sustained multiple gunshot wounds and collapsed to the ground. The gunman fled and was later spotted making his way uptown on a bicycle.