The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione.
New York, the city where Mangione allegedly carried out the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, hasn’t had the death penalty since the 1980s, so this is quite a wild thing for the US government to do. It’s also a rare move: the federal government accounts for only a tiny minority of the capital punishment carried out in the US.
Bondi said she was seeking the death penalty as part of “President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again”, and described Mangione’s alleged crime as “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.” It seems like they are determined to make an example of him, deter any potential copycats and assuage the anxieties of America’s corporate class, which has been keeping a low profile and beefing up its security since Thompson was killed last December.
Mangione, for his part, is pleading not guilty for the state charges he faces, which include first-degree murder and murder as a form of terrorism, but has yet to issue a plea for the federal charges, which include murder with a firearm and “interstate stalking”. His lawyer hasn’t yet commented on the Trump administration’s efforts to seek the death penalty, but has previously argued that his constitutional rights were violated during his arrest and that the evidence against him is therefore invalid. His next federal court hearing is due to take place on April 18, followed by a state court hearing in June. If the media circus up until now is anything to go by, it could well be the trial of the century.
At the same the Trump administration is plotting Mangione’s death, politicians in California have proposed a new bill – informally named after him – which would ban insurers from denying or delaying medical treatment which has been recommended by a doctor.