Luigi Mangione won't face the death penalty

A federal judge appointed by Joe Biden has decided stalking isn't a "crime of violence." The ruling saves Mangione, who allegedly killed an insurance executive in 2024, from a possible death sentence.

From the start, the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson unleashed a nasty strain of victim-blaming.

Within hours of Thompson’s assassination on a Manhattan street in December 2024, leftists on X joked about “preexisting conditions,” suggesting his job running a health insurance company somehow justified his death.

When police in Pennsylvania arrested Luigi Mangione for the killing days later, the hysteria reached new levels. Young (and not-so-young) women openly sympathized with Mangione, a handsome Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family. A GiveSendGo campaign for his legal expenses has raised over $1.4 million.

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($1.4 million would pay for a lot of truth.)

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Still, the defense has an uphill fight at best.

Mangione faces state and federal charges, and overwhelming evidence, including surveillance video from the scene and a Starbucks nearby, as well as the pistol, silencer, and manifesto found in his backpack when he was arrested. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but Mangione is less innocent than most.

But judges have now given Mangione two major breaks even before his trials begin.

New York does not have state death penalty laws. But in September, the state judge overseeing Mangione’s case threw out first-degree murder charges in the case, ruling that the killing could not be viewed as terrorism, despite the fact that Mangione’s alleged manifesto explicitly ties it to his grievances against the healthcare industry.

As a result, Mangione faces a sentence of 25 years to life if he’s convicted on the state charges, instead of mandatory life imprisonment — a big win for him considering he’s only 27.

This morning, Manhattan federal district judge Margaret Garnett gave Mangione an even bigger win, striking down any possibility that he will face the death penalty for killing Thompson.

In a technical 39-page ruling, Garnett found that stalking — the underlying federal charge in Mangione’s case — is not necessarily a “crime of violence.” As a result, the stalking accusation does not support an accompanying charge that was the only one to carry a potential death penalty, she found. She tossed that charge. While Mangione still faces two federal stalking counts that could result in life imprisonment, the death penalty is off the table.

Apparently the cold-blooded murder of a man in the street doesn’t count as a “crime of violence.”

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(Brian Thompson, RIP. Thompson wasn’t as handsome as Luigi Mangione, but I’m not sure that means he deserved to be gunned down on the street.)

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In its own way, Garnett’s ruling is masterful.

Early on, she openly acknowledges the “apparent absurdity” of what she is about to do. Then, in page after page of apparently logical reasoning, she does it anyway, insisting that the Supreme Court has given her no choice.

A person can violate the federal stalking law “negligently” or “recklessly,” so the statute doesn’t require the premeditation necessary for a crime of violence, she finds. She draws no distinction between sending nasty texts to an ex-girlfriend — which might technically violate the statute — and plotting and carrying out a murder.

Only at the end does Garnett show her hand, acknowledging that other federal courts have found that crimes similar to Thompson’s killing must by their very nature result from violence that is premediated and not merely reckless or negligent.

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(Judge not, lest ye be judged.)

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She then airily dismisses those other rulings, writing, “Respectfully, the Court cannot join this group.”

Why? Well, you see, if it did, Luigi might get the gas, and he’s soooooo handsome, plus this is New York, the death penalty isn’t really a thing here!

No. Not really. She just returns to her previous analysis and insists the other judges are wrong.

In fact, the other rulings aren’t binding on Garnett. Federal district judges do not have to follow each other’s decisions, particularly when they are in other circuits.

But the other rulings show Garnett could have kept the death penalty charge had she chosen to do so. Her ruling looks like a brick wall of logic, but it’s built on sand, reverse-engineered to make a death penalty charge impossible.

Did I mention that Joe Biden appointed Garnett? Just as he appointed, to the same Manhattan federal court, Jessica G.L. Clarke — who dismissed Berenson v Biden even though she also had to contradict the findings of another federal judge to do so. (I’ll have more to say about Berenson v Biden soon.)

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(Still fighting for the truth. And the First Amendment. With your help.)

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Those contradictions aren’t necessarily wrong. Judges are supposed to be independent and look at each case separately.

But they aren’t supposed to make up the law as they go along to reach the outcomes they prefer.

It is impossible to know if Garnett truly believes the stalking law gave her no choice but to dismiss the death penalty counts against Mangione or if she simply wanted a plausible reason to do so.

Either way, though, Mangione’s supporters are cheering today’s ruling. And it is hard to escape the feeling that Garnett has stepped in front of a decision that should belong to a jury.

Most of all, the ruling today feels — rightly or not — like another slap at Brian Thompson. He died alone in the street.

Yet far too many people seem to care only about his (alleged) killer.

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(My early take on the awful way the left treated Thompson’s murder is here. Paywalled only, so subscribe to read.)