A federal judge Friday dismissed some of Luigi Mangion’es charges for allegedly shooting United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024, preventing prosecutors from seeking dealth penalty. Mangione will still stand trial on his two remaining charges, which accuse him of causing Thompson’s death while stalking him. It could land him in prison for life. Margaret Garnett, the judge, dismissed the murder charge because it requires that the killing was committed during another “crime of violence.” Prosecutors alleged the other crimes of violence were two stalking charges, arguing Mangione stalked Thompson online and travelled across state lines to carry out the killing.The judge said stalking is not a crime of violence and dismissed two counts in his federal case – murder and a related firearm offense. The murder charge is the only count in Mangione’s federal indictment that could have carried a possible death sentence.The judge is an appointee of former President Biden who serves in New York City. “The analysis contained in the balance of this Opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law,” she wrote. “But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case,” Garnett continued. “The law must be the Court’s only concern.” Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.In an interesting development earlier this week, a Minnesota man was arrested for allegedly trying to break in the Brooklyn facility where Mangione is held in a failed attempt to free him.
