Luigi Mangione has gotten two of the murder counts against him dismissed in his New York state case but still faces another one, on top of federal charges that carry the possibility of capital punishment. In the state case, Justice Gregory Carro ruled Tuesday that it was legally insufficient to bring two terrorism-related murder charges but said that remaining charges can go forward, including a count of intentional murder.
So it’s a qualified win for Mangione, 27, that still has him facing the possibility of dying in prison if he is convicted, as he also faces separate federal charges in which prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Tuesday’s ruling nonetheless cuts against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case in the way that Bragg sought to shape it, even if the practical consequence of the dismissal could be slight in the end, especially in light of the separate federal case that carries the potential threat of execution. New York’s state system doesn’t have the death penalty, but the federal system does.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to the charges in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year outside a Manhattan hotel. The case grabbed national attention for spotlighting issues of vigilantism and the American health care system.
The new ruling in Mangione’s case comes amid national attention on last week’s fatal shooting of Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk in Utah.
Noting that the terrorism charges brought against Mangione involve proving the defendant intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” Carro wrote that he didn’t think the state Legislature “intended the employees of a company, however large, to constitute a ‘civilian population’ within the meaning of the statute.” The judge went on to write that even if he were to find the employees constituted such a population, “there was no evidence presented that defendant’s conscious objective or intent was to intimidate or coerce the employees of United Healthcare.”
Rather, the judge wrote, Mangione’s apparent objective was “to draw attention to what he perceived as the greed of the insurance industry” and “as an additional possible consequence, to negatively affect the financials of the company.” The judge wrote that Bragg’s office “presented sufficient evidence that the defendant murdered Brian Thompson in a premeditated and calculated execution. That does not mean, however, that the defendant did so with terroristic intent.”
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