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The 26-year-old man accused of killing an insurance executive last year is facing the most serious possible punishment. If Luigi Mangioni is convicted in federal court, he could get the death penalty. Samantha Max of member station WNYC reports.
SAMANTHA MAX, BYLINE: Attorney General Pam Bondi says pursuing the death penalty against Mangione is part of President Trump's agenda to make America safe again. The death penalty is no longer an option in New York state courts, but it is still allowed under federal law, and Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for the death penalty. Here he is addressing Congress in March.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer, and tonight I'm asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.
MAX: Trump issued that executive order on his first day in office, calling for capital punishment for what he described as horrible acts of violence against Americans. Federal prosecutors charged Mangione with stalking and killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel last December. He has not entered a plea in that case. He has pleaded not guilty to various state charges that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
BERNARD HARCOURT: It's not a surprise to me that they're seeking the death penalty.
MAX: Attorney Bernard Harcourt represents defendants in death penalty cases. He says Mangione's case aligns with the president's ideological agenda.
HARCOURT: It was an attack on the insurance industry, on a CEO. It was an attack, in a way, on the capitalist system.
MAX: Mangione has become something of a folk hero for people who are disillusioned with the American health insurance industry. But law enforcement officials have criticized the public obsession. NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch has called the shooting a cold and calculated crime.
JESSICA TISCH: We don't celebrate murders and we don't lionize the killing of anyone. And any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.
MAX: During Trump's first term, his administration executed 13 people. Now there are only three people left on federal death row. That's because former President Joe Biden commuted everyone else's sentences to life in prison just weeks before he left office. Mangione's attorney says the decision to seek the death penalty in his case is political and that her client is being treated like a trophy.
For NPR News, I'm Samantha Max in New York.
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