Three jurisdictions want to put Luigi Mangione on trial — and a battle is brewing over who will try him first.
In the four months since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot from behind on a Manhattan sidewalk, Mangione has been charged by three sets of prosecutors.
Federal and state prosecutors in New York have separate murder cases inching toward trials in 2026 or beyond, with the feds seeking the death penalty.
And prosecutors in a central Pennsylvania county, where Mangione was spotted at a McDonald’s after a five-day manhunt, tell Business Insider that they intend to take him to trial too.
Mangione is charged in Blair County with state-level weapons and forgery charges, relating to the ghost gun and fake ID that police said he possessed when he was arrested.
“We are not planning to drop our charges,” said Nichole Smith, the county’s first assistant district attorney.
Her office plans to wait until after Mangione’s New York murder trials before taking its turn.
“We’re content to bring up the end to this,” she said, “and see this through to trial.”
The 26-year-old Maryland native is contesting the charges in all three jurisdictions.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to his federal indictment on Friday.
Afterward, defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo complained about the state-federal tug of war over her client, calling it the “unprecedented, simultaneous duel prosecution of Mr. Mangione for the exact same offense.”
Order in the (3) courts
So, who gets to take Mangione to trial first for the murder of Brian Thompson — Manhattan prosecutors, or the feds?
Until recently, Manhattan’s state-level murder case had unchallenged first dibs.
That’s because back in December, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Damian Williams, the outgoing Biden-appointed US attorney in Manhattan, struck a deal: the state would try Mangione first, then the feds.
Then came April 1, when US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would seek the death penalty. Now the stakes are clearly higher —literally life or death — in federal court than in state court, where the top possible sentence is life in prison.
“We understand that there was a handshake deal between the prior administration and the Manhattan DA’s office,” that the state goes first, Friedman Agnifilo told US District Judge Margaret M. Garnett during Friday’s court appearance.
“We are going to make a request that that no longer be the case,” she said. “That’s going to be our official position, and we plan on writing on that.”
The lead federal prosecutor, Dominic Gentile, told the judge on Friday that he expects the state case will proceed first. But he also asked Garnett to proceed with scheduling as if there were no competing cases, and the judge agreed.
Spokespersons for Friedman Agnifilo and for the US Attorney’s Office declined to comment on this story.
Death penalty cases take years
For now, Manhattan’s state and federal cases remain on parallel tracks toward trying Mangione in 2026, at the earliest.
The feds lag behind the state. Federal prosecutors didn’t win an indictment against Mangione until this month, and their deadlines for pretrial motions and the exchange of evidence are now two to three months behind the deadlines set months ago in the state’s murder case.
That gap may widen.
“Death penalty cases take a very long time,” much longer than state murder cases, said Shira Scheindlin, a retired judge for the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, and where Mangione would be tried.
Death cases invoke a distinct set of pretrial defense challenges and appeals — “more motions, a much more difficult jury selection process,” said Scheindlin, now of counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.
The last federal death penalty case in Manhattan, a terror case, took six years from indictment to final verdict. A 2023 jury ultimately rejected the death penalty.
Could the state’s murder case be put on ice, potentially for years, as the defense hopes, while the feds go first?
That’s exactly what’s going to happen, predicts Charles Solomon, a Manhattan-based state supreme court justice for 33 years.
“They’re not going to give him up so the state can go first — why should they?” the now-retired judge told BI, referring to federal prosecutors.
If Bragg and the US attorney in Manhattan — Jay Clayton, who was nominated on an interim basis this month by President Donald Trump — were friendly, the two jurisdictions would work things out amicably, Solomon said.
“The state would say to the feds, OK, you go first, and if you convict him and he gets the death penalty, then we might not try him, or we’ll wait to see what happens on appeal,” Solomon said.
But there is no love lost between Trump and Bragg. Last May, in the so-called hush-money case, the Manhattan DA’s office won the only conviction out of four criminal indictments brought against the then-candidate. Trump is appealing the conviction.
“Trump’s not going to let Bragg go first,” and steal the publicity of bringing Mangione’s first trial, Solomon said. “Trump’s not going to let Bragg take something that he wants — that’s not going to happen.”
The feds also have physical custody of Mangione, the former judge said, and don’t even have to make him available to the state.
“The state can get a writ of habeas corpus, demanding Mangione be brought to state court,” he said, “and a judge can sign it, but the feds don’t have to honor it.”
Bragg and his lead prosecutor on the case, Joel Seidemann, will not stand by idly if the feds move to put Mangione on trial first, predicted Solomon and another retired Manhattan judge, Michael Obus, a state supreme court supervising judge before retiring in 2017.
Over the years, Obus presided over dozens of cases where Seidemann was a prosecutor, including a high-profile murder of a millionaire real estate tycoon. The victim had been shot in the back on a Manhattan sidewalk in 1990 in an ambush-style contract hit paid for by his wife. Seidemann pursued the case for decades.
“Given that the feds have him, that the defense agrees, and assuming that the federal prosecutors want to pursue the matter and will do it expeditiously, that’s probably the way it’s going to go,” — with the federal trial going first, Obus said.
“But Joel Seidemann would not give this up without a fight,” Obus predicted.
Mangione is due back in federal court on December 5. His next state court date is June 26.