Luigi Mangione Could Escape Death Penalty Because of Trump’s Comments on Fox News and Tweets by DOJ Employees

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Multiple Department of Justice employees “may have violated” Luigi Mangione’s right to a fair trial through public comments and social media posts, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday — and it could end up swaying the judge to grant a defense motion to take the death penalty off the table.

Mangione, 27, is currently in a federal prison in Brooklyn, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The case has attracted a high level of media attention and already sparked multiple documentaries.

Thompson was shot and killed early in the morning on Dec. 4, 2024, outside of the New York Hilton Midtown, where the company was holding an investor conference. Police have said they believe this was a premeditated and targeted attack.

Within days of the murder, Mangione was arrested. In his possession was a ghost gun and suppressor and a manifesto that railed against the health insurance industry. He has been charged with murder, second-degree possession of a forged document, and multiple charges for second and third-degree criminal possession of a firearm under New York law, and stalking, murder through use of a firearm, and weapons charges under federal law. Earlier this month, a judge dismissed two federal charges against Mangione, for first-degree murder and for second-degree murder related to killing as an act of terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty to all remaining charges.

If convicted of a federal charge of murder through use of a firearm, Mangione could face the death penalty, and Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a public statement in April directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

President Donald Trump has spoken about the case several times in press conferences and media interviews, calling the murder “cold-blooded” and “horrible” and calling it a “sickness” for people to be supporting Mangione. During a Sept. 18 Fox News interview, Trump stated that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me” and “He shot him right in the middle of the back — instantly dead.”

The president’s comments on Fox News, along with social media posts from high-ranking DOJ employees amplifying a video clip shared by an official White House account, were cited by Mangione’s defense counsel in a motion filed on Tuesday seeking to persuade the judge to take the death penalty off the table, as reported by former Law&Crime managing editor Adam Klasfeld at All Rise News.

As Klasfeld noted, U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett for the Southern District of New York, a Biden appointee, had strictly warned prosecutors in an order in April they were required to comply with Local Criminal Rule 23.1, which governs “Free Press-Fair Trial Directives.”

The text of the Rule imposes an affirmative duty on the lawyers, police officers, private investigators, and employees of the defense attorneys or government prosecutors involved in a criminal case to “not to release or authorize the release of non-public information…in connection with pending or imminent criminal litigation with which they are associated, if there is a substantial likelihood that such dissemination will interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice.”

Rule 23.1(d) lists multiple examples of subjects that “presumptively involve a substantial likelihood that their public dissemination will interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice within the meaning of this rule,” including “[a]ny opinion as to the accused’s guilt or innocence or as to the merits of the case or the evidence in the case.”

The below tweet, posted by Chad Gilmartin, Deputy Director of the Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, and retweeted by Brian Nieves, Chief of Staff for Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Deputy Attorney General, was cited by Mangione’s defense attorneys in a letter to the court Tuesday as an example of a violation of the rule. Gilmartin later deleted the tweet.

Screenshot via X.

Other examples cited by the defense include a Sept. 22 White House press briefing where White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Mangione a “left wing assassin [who] shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson right in the back” and comments by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller in a Sept. 23 Fox News appearance, which Miller himself shared on social media, saying that Thompson was “brutally gunned down by another self-described so-called anti-fascist.”

“The Government very well knows this statement to be false as they are in possession of his alleged extensive journal writings where the writer never once mentions being anti- (or pro) fascist,” the defense letter pointed out.

“The Government has indelibly prejudiced Mr. Mangione by baselessly linking him to unrelated violent events, and left-wing extremist groups, despite there being no connection or affiliation,” the defense’s letter continued, and indirectly referenced the assassination of Charlie Kirk — “[a] recent, tragic, high-profile murder” as an event that has “increased this prejudicial rhetoric,” arguing that “the attempts to connect Mr. Mangione with these incidents and paint him as a ‘left wing’ violent extremist are false, prejudicial, and part of a greater political narrative that has no place in a criminal case, especially one where the death penalty is at stake.”

In Judge Garnett’s two-page order, she wrote that after reviewing the defense’s letter, “[i]t appears” that “multiple employees at the Department of Justice may have violated Local Criminal Rule 23.1,” and the court’s April order, specifically citing the Gilmartin tweet as appearing to be a “direct violation” of the rule and her order.

The judge ordered the DOJ prosecutors to file a response by Oct. 3 that included “a sworn declaration from a person of suitable authority…that explains to the Court how these violations occurred, despite the Court’s April 25 Order, and what steps are being taken to ensure that no future violations occur.”

The order further required the prosecutors “to advise the Deputy Attorney General, for dissemination within the Department as appropriate, that future violations may result in sanctions, which could include personal financial penalties, contempt of court findings, or relief specific to the prosecution of this matter,” and to include “confirmation that this message has been conveyed to the Deputy Attorney General” in the sworn declaration due Oct. 3.

Garnett concluded by stating that she “will consider” the statements by DOJ employees cited in the defense letter as part of the defense’s motion to strike the death penalty, spelling out a potentially very real consequence for a Trump administration that has aggressively agitated for severe consequences for Thompson’s murder.