Judge bars prosecutors from seeking death penalty against Penn graduate Luigi Mangione

A district judge ruled on Friday that federal prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty against 2020 Penn Engineering graduate Luigi Mangione.

On Jan. 30, United States District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed the two most serious charges — one of which carried a potential death penalty — levied against Mangione, who is accused of murdering former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. His case will still proceed to trial on two other counts.

According to Garnett, the stalking charges, which included murder through use of a firearm and a weapons charge, did not meet the statutory definition of a “crime of violence” — a necessary qualification to pursue the death penalty against a defendant.

As a result, she wrote, “the chief practical effect of the legal infirmities of Counts Three and Four, and this Court’s decision that they must be dismissed, is solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury.”

Mangione still faces two counts of stalking. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On Jan. 9, Mangione faced a pretrial conference in federal court — his first appearance in federal court since his April 2025 arraignment. 

In December 2025, Mangione’s lawyers accused authorities of publicly vowing to seek the death penalty before Mangione’s indictment and turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle. They also argued that two of the 13 total charges against him — including murder by firearm — are legally flawed. The prosecution contested the defense’s claims, arguing that “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”

As a Penn student, Mangione studied at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and founded UPGRADE, the University’s first game development club. He graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer and information science.

On campus, Mangione was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, a University-affiliated fraternity. In a previous social media post, he claimed that his mental and physical issues were exacerbated by the fraternity’s “hell week.”

Mangione suffered from back issues and “brain fog,” which he posted about frequently on Reddit. His posts — which detailed the negative impact of the health issues on his overall well-being — also attributed his decline in academic success to worsening health.

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