Luigi Mangione's lawyers renew push to dismiss state charges in Brian Thompson killing

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on 14 August to federal charges in Thompson's death outside a Manhattan hotel on 4 December 2024. The plea came less than a month before his state murder and weapons trial, which had been scheduled for 8 September. About an hour after he admitted to two federal stalking charges, his lawyers filed the paperwork to dismiss the state case.

Thompson's killing set off a sprawling search for his killer and drew an onslaught of anger against the for-profit US healthcare industry, long decried for putting its bottom line ahead of patients.

Under the US Constitution, double jeopardy protection does not bar state prosecution for the same crimes as a federal case, and vice versa. But New York state law maintains that "a person may not be twice prosecuted for the same offense" and "a person may not be separately prosecuted for two offenses based upon the same act or criminal transaction."

In their new filing, Mangione's lawyers reiterated their double-jeopardy arguments. "The core misconduct of the federal and state prosecutions is the same: the intent to kill and the killing of Brian Thompson. Yes, stalking can also, in some circumstances, apply to conduct different and less extreme than intending to kill someone. But this has nothing to do with whether it also applies to intentional killing," they wrote. "One of the harms clearly addressed by the expansive federal stalking statute is stalking with the intent to kill and resulting in the killing of the person stalked," they also said. "It is a statute that, like a state murder statute, is intended to keep people safe from being murdered—the oldest crime there is. That the stalking statute also criminalizes stalking conduct that does not result in death does not change that analysis."

Manhattan prosecutors oppose the dismissal. In paperwork filed on 9 October, they said the state proceedings can proceed under an exception to the state's double jeopardy provisions, arguing that federal stalking crimes and state murder offenses do not overlap in a way that triggers those protections. "Statutory double jeopardy applies only when a defendant has been 'separately prosecuted' for the same misconduct, and dismissed federal charges do not constitute a separate prosecution," they said.

Judge Gregory Carro, who is presiding over the state case, pushed back the proceedings after the unexpected plea and scheduled the next court date for 10 December.