Luigi Mangione’s state murder trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, originally slated to begin 8 September, has been postponed indefinitely as his lawyers seek to have the case thrown out on double jeopardy grounds following his guilty plea last week to federal charges.
The judge presiding over the case, Gregory Carro, issued an order on Monday canceling the trial and giving the Manhattan District Attorney's office, which is prosecuting the state case, until 9 October to respond to the defence's double jeopardy claims.
A hearing will be held on 10 December, Carro said, about a week before Mangione is scheduled to be sentenced in the federal case.
Mangione, 28, pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan federal court to a pair of stalking charges and admitted trailing Thompson to UnitedHealth Group’s investor conference and gunning him down outside a Manhattan hotel in 2024.
Federal prosecutors said they would seek life in prison when Mangione is sentenced on 18 December, though federal sentencing guidelines call for a term of 24 to 30 years. “On the morning of 4 December, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” Mangione said.
Immediately after his plea, Mangione’s lawyers filed paperwork seeking to have the state case thrown out on double jeopardy and due process grounds.
They described him as a “pawn in parallel prosecutions" and accused state and federal prosecutors of “trying to punish him twice for the exact conduct.” Mangione has pleaded not guilty in the state case, which also carries the possibility of a life sentence.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said in a statement that it would fight efforts to end the state case, in part because Mangione’s federal sentence isn’t yet known.
Compared with federal law and that of other states, New York has uncommonly strong protections for defendants facing multiple prosecutions. A state prosecution can be barred if a federal case involving the same course of conduct or criminal transaction ends in a guilty plea or if a jury is sworn.
It will be up to Judge Carro to decide if that applies to Mangione. However Carro rules, his decision will be subject to appeal.
Mangione pleaded guilty to federal charges that accused him of traveling across state lines by bus to stalk and kill Thompson. The charges alleged that he used a cell phone, the internet, interstate highways and a hostel serving out-of-state customers to plan and carry out the attack.
“The full range of conduct that comprises the stalking offence is coterminous with the conduct committed as part of the murder offense,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote in their double jeopardy filing.
That Mangione travelled from out of state "to be at the crime scene at the time of the shooting does nothing to eliminate the stalking of Mr. Thompson from the acts constituting his murder,” they added. “They are all part of the same criminal incident or criminal transaction.”
Bragg’s office contends that the state charges, including murder and firearms offences, involve different legal elements and criminal conduct. In a letter last month, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann objected to the possibility of a federal guilty plea wiping out the state case.
Any guilty plea, Seidemann wrote, “must account for the seriousness of defendant’s offenses” and for the state's interests in prosecuting Mangione, “including the sanctity of life principle that underpins the state homicide charges.”
