US Justice Department to seek the death penalty for Mangione

(CNN) — Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday the Justice Department will seek the death penalty for accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione.

Bondi said she will direct the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Matthew Podolsky, to seek the death penalty in the case if Mangione is convicted on capital murder charges.

Mangione is facing state and federal charges for allegedly shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December. He has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. Mangione was charged in a federal criminal complaint but has not yet been indicted on those charges.

Mangione’s attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo has said she was in discussions with the Justice Department over the decision. Agnifilo said Tuesday that the Justice Department’s push for the death penalty shows the DOJ has “moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric.”

“Their decision to execute Luigi is political and goes against the recommendation of the local federal prosecutors, the law, and historical precedent,” Agnifilo said in a statement. “While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi. By doing this, they are defending the broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry that continues to terrorize the American people.”

A spokesman for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.

The news is among the Trump administration’s first major announcements related to the federal death penalty – which the president has clearly indicated he wants to see pursued by his Justice Department when applicable. Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”

The federal criminal complaint charges Mangione with murder through use of a firearm, two stalking charges and a firearms offense.

In February, Mangione added an attorney experienced in death penalty cases to his legal team.

Avraham Moskowitz has represented more than 50 defendants charged in death penalty-eligible cases in New York, according to court filings and Mangione’s attorneys.

Mangione is being held in federal custody in Brooklyn, New York, though officials have said his case in New York state court will go forward first.

He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on 11 counts, including one count of murder in the first degree and two counts of murder in the second degree, along with other weapons and forgery charges. He faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted on the state charges.

The first-degree murder charge alleges he killed the executive “in furtherance of an act of terrorism,” which is legally defined as an intent to intimidate or coerce the civilian population or a government unit. One of the second-degree counts also alleges Mangione committed murder “as a crime of terrorism.”

The 26-year-old also faces state charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested after a weeklong manhunt in December.

When he was arrested after being spotted in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, law enforcement recovered a “ghost gun” and a notebook full of writings that they have said revealed a well-planned homicide involving stalking his alleged victim.

Mangione has received widespread support from a growing fan base, raising more than $700,000 toward his legal bills.

During his first term, Trump’s administration carried out the first federal executions in nearly two decades, putting to death 13 inmates in the months before he left office. And throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump signaled a desire to resume federal executions once again.

President Joe Biden, however, erected a hurdle to his successor’s goal when he commuted the death sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison, leaving just three who were convicted of high-profile mass shootings or acts of terrorism.

Bondi echoed Trump’s executive order when she took office in early February, issuing a memorandum denouncing Biden’s commutations. They had, she wrote, “severely undermined the rule of law” and “betrayed our sacred duty and broke our promise to achieve justice.”

“This shameful era ends today,” Bondi wrote, announcing the Justice Department would lift a moratorium on federal executions put in place during the Biden administration. “Going forward, the Department of Justice will once again act as the law demands –– including by seeking death sentences in appropriate cases and swiftly implementing those sentences in accordance with the law.”

This story has been updated with additional context and developments.

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