Luigi Mangione is Facing Two Murder Charges Tied to One Murder, Why?

 By Lola Fadulu

The New York Times

Federal and state prosecutors charged Luigi Mangione this week in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in Manhattan, a two-pronged legal offensive that could complicate the high-profile case.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Mr. Mangione with one count of first-degree murder, a terrorism-related offense; two second-degree murder counts; and weapons crimes. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York charged him with one count of murder, two counts of stalking and a firearms offense.

The maximum punishment for the state charges is life without parole. If convicted on the federal charges, Mr. Mangione could face the death penalty.

The state case is expected to go to trial before the federal one, said Edward Y. Kim, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District, and state prosecutors said they would coordinate with federal agencies. 

Here’s what to know about the parallel prosecutions:

Are they legal?

Jessica Roth, a professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law and a former Southern District prosecutor, said there was precedent for federal and state cases to proceed simultaneously.

“It’s certainly happened before with respect to high-profile murder cases,” Professor Roth said, adding that the federal government has generally pursued its own prosecution when there were concerns about a state’s access to “sufficient resources or penalties.”

Professor Roth said if the state case goes to trial first, “the federal case sort of lies in the background as a backstop in case anything goes wrong.”

She cited the parallel prosecutions of the Minneapolis police officers who killed George Floyd as among the cases that have followed a similar path. Another case in that category involved the three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

In such situations, Professor Roth said, federal prosecutors brought civil rights charges while states brought murder charges. 

How do the cases against Mr. Mangione differ?

State prosecutors argue that Mr. Mangione committed an act of terrorism. Their federal counterparts argue that he stalked the UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, before killing him.

Professor Roth said “there is a tension” between the cases because stalking is directed at a specific person, and New York defines terrorism as the intimidation or coercion of a civilian population or a government.

But, she added, “They are not irreconcilable, in that you could stalk an individual with the intent to intimidate or coerce a government or a population, particularly, for example, if you were stalking a political figure.”

Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law School professor and another former Southern District prosecutor, said it was not unusual for two prosecutors to have different views of a case.

“Those two characterizations of intent aren’t inconsistent at all,” he said. “You could certainly be focusing on one person and yet also have an intent to influence policy.” 

Anna Cominsky, the director of the criminal defense clinic at New York Law School, said that even if the theories were contradictory, there is little that defense lawyers could do.

“Sometimes there can be an argument made to the jury that the prosecutor really doesn’t have the facts or they don’t know the facts,” she said, “or the facts show reasonable doubt because, look, the prosecutor can’t even tell how they want to proceed on this case.”

But normally, she said, lawyers would not be allowed to talk about a federal case in front of a state jury and vice versa.

“If they’re able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the one who shot and killed Brian Thompson, he is going to be convicted,” Ms. Cominsky said.

How has Mr. Mangione’s defense team responded?

 

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mr. Mangione’s lawyer, said in federal court this week that her client was in a “highly unusual situation.” She said that when the district attorney’s office announced its charges, there was “absolutely no mention” that her client would face a federal case as well. 

“I don’t think they even knew that this was going to happen,” Ms. Agnifilo, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said.

The two cases appeared to be in conflict, she said, adding that in more than three decades of work, “I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here.”

What about double jeopardy?

Professor Roth said that New York State and the federal government are considered separate “sovereigns” in legal terms, skirting the federal prohibition against being tried twice on the same charge. But New York prohibits its prosecutors from pursuing state charges after a federal case on the same offense.

“That’s a reason for the federal government to essentially step back and let the state case go first,” she said.

Professor Richman said that if the state case resulted in conviction, the federal government might drop its case. But, he added, the Justice Department under President-elect Donald J. Trump might want a trial to win a death penalty. 

What happens next?

Ms. Cominsky said that several factors could determine how quickly the cases move forward, including whether Mr. Mangione exercises his right to a speedy trial and how quickly evidence is turned over to the defense.

“As things advance, we may see one case start to move forward more than the other,” she said. “We’re so early on that we don’t really know.”