Manhattan DA asks judge to keep Luigi Mangione's state murder case alive

Manhattan prosecutors on Friday urged a judge not to dismiss the state murder case against Luigi Mangione, arguing that his guilty plea in federal court this summer does not shield him from a separate New York trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The filing, a memorandum of law from District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, answers a motion Mangione's lawyers filed right after he pleaded guilty in August. They say prosecuting him in state court after his federal conviction would violate New York's double jeopardy protections, which generally bar trying someone twice for the same crime, CBS New York reported.

"Different evils"

Mangione pleaded guilty on Aug. 14 to two federal charges: interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through the use of interstate facilities resulting in death. At the plea hearing he admitted shooting Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk on Dec. 4, 2024, Courthouse News Service reported.

The DA's office argues that the state murder charge can go forward under an exception in New York's double jeopardy law that applies when each offense has an element the other lacks and the laws are aimed at different harms. According to Courthouse News, prosecutors wrote that the federal stalking counts required that the victim be placed in reasonable fear of death or serious injury, while a murder conviction does not depend on what the victim knew. The federal sentencing provision also requires neither an intent to kill nor proximate causation, while the state murder charge requires both, they argued.

The state weapons charges should survive as well, prosecutors said, because the federal firearm count against Mangione was dismissed before he pleaded guilty, so he was never "separately prosecuted" on it under state law.

What the defense says

In their 32-page motion, Mangione's lawyers called him a "pawn in parallel prosecutions" pursued by the Manhattan DA and the U.S. Justice Department, CBS New York and Courthouse News reported. A spokesperson for the defense team did not immediately respond to Gothamist's request for comment on Friday's filing.

What comes next

Mangione still faces second-degree murder, weapons and forgery charges in state court, according to CBS New York. Judges earlier threw out the most serious counts in both cases, including state terrorism charges and a federal murder charge that carried a possible death sentence, Gothamist reported.

The state trial had been set to start in September but was postponed after the federal plea. State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro is scheduled to rule on the dismissal motion on Dec. 10, and Mangione is set to be sentenced in federal court on Dec. 18, where he could face life in prison, Courthouse News reported.