Mangione says U.S. bid to execute him is an Instagram stunt

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a federal court Friday to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against him, arguing that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recently announced decision to do so was “explicitly and unapologetically political.”

Mangione, 26, has been charged with the Dec. 4 fatal shooting of a health care executive, Brian Thompson, 50, as he was walking to an early morning conference at the New York Hilton Midtown. On April 1, Bondi announced that she had directed prosecutors to seek capital punishment in the case “as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”

Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s real motive in making the announcement was to garner press attention, noting that she discussed her decision in a “Fox News Sunday” interview and “publicly released her order so she would have ‘content’ for her newly launched Instagram account.”

They said she had also violated Justice Department protocols to ensure such decisions are made fairly and consistently. These protocols include letting defense lawyers make detailed written and oral presentations to a U.S. attorney’s office and Justice Department officials in Washington. A department committee generally issues a recommendation to the attorney general, who makes the final decision.

The lawyers said the Trump Justice Department ignored their request to take three months to investigate and prepare a thorough argument against the death penalty. The lawyers had been able to make written and oral presentations to the government only in January, in the waning days of the Biden administration.

“These are not normal times,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote.

By directing prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to seek the death penalty “without affording even a modicum of process,” the lawyers said, Bondi was “being consistent with the new culture of the highest levels of the Justice Department, one that values personal will over process, publicity over discretion and partisan politics over justice.”

Mangione has not yet been indicted in federal court in Thompson’s killing, but he is being held on a criminal complaint with four counts, including using a firearm to commit murder, which carries a potential death sentence.

Mangione’s lawyers also argued that Bondi’s statements will “prejudice the grand jury” that is asked to hear the case and return an indictment.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a Southern District spokesperson declined to comment.

Mangione has separately been charged by the office of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, with first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, which carries a potential life sentence without parole. He also faces charges in Pennsylvania, where, after a manhunt, he was arrested Dec. 9 at a McDonald’s in Altoona. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

The case has become a symbol of national anger at the country’s privatized health care system. Mangione’s most recent appearance in the Manhattan criminal courthouse drew hundreds of supporters who lined the hallways and protested outside.

Mangione’s lawyers in their Friday brief offered an unusually detailed look at what they said was Bondi’s “wholesale rejection of the death penalty protocol.”

Since the beginning of January — before Trump took office — they had been in regular contact with Southern District prosecutors, according to the filing. On Jan. 12, the defense emailed an 11-page document to the government “detailing why the death penalty was inappropriate.” They made an oral presentation the next day.

In February, with Trump in office, the defense contacted the Southern District and learned that the Justice Department had not yet made a decision. On March 12, Mangione’s lawyers said prosecutors told them that the death penalty decision “would be reached without waiting for the defense to submit mitigating factors.”

Mangione’s lawyers said they were first informed about Bondi’s decision by a newspaper reporter.

Bondi said in her announcement that the decision followed “careful consideration,” and was in line with a memo she issued her first day in office ordering prosecutors to seek capital punishment in eligible cases for the most serious, readily provable offenses.

“The president’s directive was very clear: We are to seek the death penalty when possible,” Bondi said in the interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

In their filing, Mangione’s lawyers wrote that Bondi, in the interview, noted that the victim, Thompson, was a CEO.

They argued that “the professional status of any homicide victim” should not be a factor in such decisions, and wanted information about whether “any business interest communicated with the Department of Justice” about Mangione.

“The stakes could not be higher,” the lawyers wrote. “The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt.”