Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, asked a federal judge to block Attorney General Pam Bondi from seeking the death penalty against him.
Mangione’s lawyers said that Bondi has violated the defendant’s due process rights and the government’s actions have “corrupted” the grand jury process, arguing the U.S. government “intends to kill” to Mangione as a “political stunt.” It points to Bondi’s previous statement that the death penalty would “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
“We appreciate, and will address, the province and discretion of the Executive Branch of government, and how, in the usual course, courts defer to the Executive’s established procedures,” Mangione lawyers Karen Agnifilo and Avi Moskowitz wrote in a motion filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.
“But the Attorney General’s actions and public statements in this case have not followed the usual course,” they said in the court filing. “Because the Attorney General has chosen to proceed in this way, Mr. Mangione’s Due Process rights have already been violated and the manner in which the Government has acted has prejudiced the grand jury pool and has corrupted the grand jury process.”
Bondi directed federal prosecutors earlier this month to seek the death penalty against Mangione, who is accused of gunning down Thompson, the healthcare company executive, on Dec. 4 in Manhattan.
Mangione, who was arrested five days after the Dec. 5 shooting in Altoona, Pa., is staring down two murders cases. One was brought by federal prosecutors and the other by New York City authorities.
Mangione could be eligible for the death sentence if he is convicted in one of the four federal charges he faces, murder through use of a firearm.
“Ultimately, any mitigation would have fallen on deaf ears in any event, as the Attorney General was plainly concerned only with ‘the President’s directive’ and with the ‘Make America Safe’ policies of the administration instead of the facts of this case,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote in the filing.