As Luigi Mangione’s highly anticipated federal trial could start by year’s end, his defense team is working hard to prevent jurors from seeing some of the most incriminating evidence against him, including an alleged murder weapon.
Mangione is charged with the murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson. Thompson’s 2024 killing on a midtown Manhattan street spurred an expansive manhunt for the assailant, but also fanned the flames of public outcry over the US health insurance industry’s profit-driven practices.
Mangione’s lawyers might have a viable legal avenue to prevent items discovered during a search from being introduced at both his state and federal trials, several experts told the Guardian.
One legal expert even said that if the New York City judge decided against admitting these items, it could all but gut the state case.
Police captured Mangione at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on 9 December 2024 and Mangione’s legal team has repeatedly argued for evidence gathered during a search of his backpack be excluded from trial. They have said that Mangione was not immediately apprised of his constitutional rights, undermining the validity of his arrest and that the warrantless police search was unlawful.
Judge Margaret Garnett, who is overseeing Mangione’s federal case, heard testimony on Friday from Nathan Snyder, the Altoona deputy police chief, about procedures surrounding searches. This hearing came several months after Judge Gregory Carro, who is presiding over Mangione’s New York state court case, heard testimony to determine evidence was gathered illegally when authorities encountered him.
Prosecutors have claimed that Altoona police were justified in searching Mangione’s backpack at the McDonald’s, saying the search was incident to a lawful arrest. Items recovered during this search include the gun that prosecutors allege Mangione used to kill Thompson.
Mangione’s defense team countered by saying this search did not fall into that category. Search “incident to a lawful arrest”, Mangione’s lawyers said in Manhattan federal court papers, is limited to an “arrestee’s person and the area within his immediate control – construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence”.
Body-worn camera footage shows, however, that police moved his backpack away from him nearly 20 minutes before he was arrested, they argue. They also contend that Mangione was cuffed, hands behind his back, and kept apart from his backpack “by at least five officers” while seven other officers mulled around that part of the McDonald’s.
While Garrett and Carro have not yet decided on the search issue, legal experts tell the Guardian that a ruling in favor of Mangione could amount to a small win or a major coup for his defense lawyers.
Ron Kuby, a longtime defense attorney whose practice focuses on civil rights, said the key question is whether prosecutors can prove that Altoona officers’ search of Mangione’s backpack was among the rare situations permitting a search without a warrant – such as suspicion that there might be a bomb.
“You see an object, the wires are sticking out, you hear the ticking and the person is wanted for bombing. You don’t need a warrant under those circumstances to render that item safe,” Kuby said. “But here, there was no basis whatsoever to think that there was an explosive device in the backpack.”
Two police officers cited bomb fears during prior evidentiary proceedings, which Kuby claimed, “that argument, that justification, is absurd on its face”. He noted that if there were actual bomb fears, Altoona police would not have let patrons continue ordering food.
As for police claims that the search of Mangione’s bag was legitimate search “incident to an arrest”, Kuby said that authorities can search a person, as well as any area and “grabbable thing” this person has, to ensure they don’t have access to a weapon.
If Mangione’s backpack were next to him when he was arrested, then police could legitimately search his backpack. “The problem is that once they decided it was Luigi, they removed the backpack from anywhere that he could grab it precisely so he wouldn’t grab it, then they arrested him.”
“They can’t very well claim that the search was incident to arrest because he couldn’t have grabbed it, plus he was in handcuffs,” Kuby said.
“If this were any other case, there’s no question but that these items would be suppressed and if Judge Carro is as smart as I think he is, he might very well suppress those items and allow the prosecution to appeal.” If an appeals panel did uphold the suppression, Kuby said, “it’s almost impossible for the state to go forward and in that case, they would just proceed federally.”
Anna G Cominsky, a professor of law at New York Law School, said that a court’s decision on suppression issues “is absolutely going to change what the trial looks like”.
If physical evidence is suppressed, then it changes what prosecutors can put in front of a jury. Cominsky also pointed out that the federal and state cases are independent of one another. That means it is possible there could be varied judicial views about evidence in both cases – neither judge is bound by the other’s decision.
“The federal judge has to follow federal law and federal cases, and the state court has to follow state law and state cases,” Cominsky said, adding: “They are both working under the big, broad umbrella of the fourth amendment.”
“The big overarching theme is whether or not the defendant’s fourth amendment constitutional rights were violated, but theoretically, you could have different decisions,” she said.
Julie Rendelman, a veteran defense lawyer and former prosecutor, also said that possible suppression of the backpack could affect prosecutions against Mangione.
“If a judge were to find that the backpack contents do not come in, then you potentially lose one of the most important pieces of evidence, which is the weapon that was used,” Rendelman said of the allegations.
Even if the backpack were booted, Rendelman thinks the case against Mangione will go on. “There is other evidence that he is, in fact, the person that committed this crime.”
“You are going to see a trial no matter what – this isn’t going to get dismissed if Judge Carro does not allow in the items that are in the backpack,” Rendelman said. “We’re just looking at a more difficult case for the district attorney’s office.”
Prosecutors are confident that their case against Mangione is solid.
State prosecutors have pointed out that extensive evidence abounds that’s entirely unrelated to his search. Manhattan prosecutors said in state court filings that DNA analysis showed that Mangione’s DNA was on the mobile phone, water bottle, bag, chewing gum, and wrapper “discarded by the shooter during his flight from the assassination”.
The New York police department also found Mangione’s fingerprints on a water bottle, and candy bar wrapper that he allegedly “discarded in a garbage can in the plaza [nearby] prior to the shooting”. They also pointed to “hundreds of hours” of video footagethat prosecutors say tracked his movements, “further establishing that it was defendant who murdered 50 year-old Brian Thompson as he strolled down a midtown street in Manhattan”.
“If ever there were an open and shut case pointing to defendant’s guilt, this case is that case,” they said. “Simply put, one would be hard pressed to find a case with such overwhelming evidence of guilt as to the identity of the murderer and the premeditated nature of the assassination.”
