Luigi Mangione appeared in Manhattan state court on Monday for the first day of potentially weeklong proceedings to measure the validity of evidence collected during his arrest following the murder of a prominent health care executive.
Mangione was arrested last December in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare senior Brian Thompson. In addition to the state-level charges, he will also face a case in Manhattan federal court.
Thompson’s brutal murder on the streets of New York City sparked an intense search for the killer, but also sparked anger over the practices of the American profit-based healthcare industry. Since his arrest, Mangione has attracted some enthusiastic supporters online and at his court appearances.
Mangione entered the courtroom wearing a slate coat with a patterned button-down shirt, a white background with red lines forming a check-like pattern. When Mangione entered the room, he was handcuffed, but the handcuffs were removed shortly after he sat down.
The accused murderer has declared himself innocent of all the charges against him. Mangione’s appearance came just two months after he won a major legal victory in his state case.
Judge Gregory Caro on September 16 dismissed the top two state charges against him – first-degree murder and second-degree murder, both of which prosecutors had argued were terrorism crimes. Caro said that “the evidence presented was legally insufficient” for terrorism-related charges.
Mangione still faces nine counts in his state case, including second-degree murder. The punishment for second-degree murder in New York ranges from 25 years to life in prison.
Mangione’s legal team has repeatedly pushed to exclude evidence collected during his arrest at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9, 2024. He claims that police, who came to the fast-food eatery based on an anonymous tip, did not immediately inform Mangione of his constitutional rights.
Mangione’s lawyers have argued that because he was not informed of his rights, his statements to police should not be allowed in court. They also argue that evidence taken during his arrest should be barred, saying they conducted a “warrantless search” of Mangione’s bag.
More than two dozen witnesses are expected to testify in the trial, which begins this week, to answer questions about how his arrest occurred and how evidence was collected. Potential witnesses include police involved in Mangione’s case.
Although there were fewer fans in attendance than at previous proceedings, and a lack of date night-style attire was visible among some supporters, they were still as energetic as ever.
In the women’s restroom, Mangione’s supporters talked among themselves about the action. One, who wore a satin sash emblazoned with Luigi in green, appeared to commiserate with another supporter about not being allowed to wear the prom-queen evoking accessory.
Other furnishings were more straightforward. One supporter wore a shirt that read: “11 minutes of body camera footage missing.”
<a href