US Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi says resolution is predicated on President Donald Trump’s agenda to cease crime and ‘Make America Secure Once more’.
US Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi has stated that she has directed prosecutors to hunt the dying penalty in opposition to Luigi Mangione, the person accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
It’s the first time the Justice Division has sought to carry the dying penalty since US President Donald Trump returned to workplace in January with a marketing campaign vow to renew federal executions.
Bondi’s resolution to pursue the dying penalty is available in a high-profile case, reported all over the world, in opposition to Mangione, who has drawn a legion of supporters vehemently against what they are saying are abuses by the healthcare trade.
Thompson’s killing alarmed the company world, the place some well being insurers swiftly switched to distant work or on-line shareholder conferences. However the case additionally channelled some Individuals’ deep frustrations with medical health insurance firms which were accused of denying many important care as a result of price.
Mangione’s writings and phrases on bullets recovered from the scene mirrored animus towards well being insurers and company America, authorities have stated.
Surveillance video confirmed a masked gunman capturing Thompson from behind. Police say the phrases “delay,” “deny” and “depose” have been scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase generally used to explain insurer techniques to keep away from paying claims.
“Luigi Mangione’s homicide of Brian Thompson – an harmless man and father of two younger kids – was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi stated in a press release on Tuesday that described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence”.
“After cautious consideration, I’ve directed federal prosecutors to hunt the dying penalty on this case as we feature out President Trump’s agenda to cease violent crime and Make America Secure Once more,” Bondi stated.
Trump oversaw an unprecedented run of executions on the finish of his first time period and has been an outspoken proponent of increasing capital punishment. Bondi’s order comes weeks after she lifted a moratorium on the federal dying penalty that had been imposed below former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In his ultimate weeks in workplace, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 folks on federal dying row, changing their punishments to life in jail.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, is accused of gunning down Thompson on December 4 outdoors a Manhattan lodge the place UnitedHealthcare was about to carry an investor convention. Thompson, who was 50 and had two kids in highschool, labored for many years inside UnitedHealthcare and its father or mother firm.
Mangione faces separate federal and state homicide fees for the killing. The federal fees embody homicide by the usage of a firearm, which carries the potential for the dying penalty. The state fees carry a most punishment of life in jail. Mangione has pleaded not responsible to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal fees.
Prosecutors have stated the 2 instances will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state case anticipated to go to trial first. It wasn’t instantly clear if Bondi’s announcement will change the order.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, has stated she would search to suppress a number of the proof seized throughout his arrest. She has additionally taken difficulty with the parallel prosecutions, accusing “warring jurisdictions” of turning Mangione right into a “human ping-pong ball”.
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370km) west of New York Metropolis, after a five-day manhunt.
Police stated Mangione had with him a 9mm handgun that matched the one used within the capturing and different gadgets together with a pretend ID and a pocket book described by authorities as a “manifesto” by which they are saying he expressed hostility in direction of the medical health insurance trade and rich executives.
Among the many entries within the pocket book, prosecutors stated, was one from August 2024 that stated “the goal is insurance coverage” as a result of “it checks each field” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance coverage firm CEO.
UnitedHealthcare is the biggest well being insurer within the US, although the corporate stated Mangione was by no means a shopper.
After his arrest, Mangione was whisked by airplane and helicopter again to New York and walked slowly up a Manhattan pier in a extremely choreographed spectacle by a throng of officers with assault rifles and a contingent that included New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams.
