- The US seeks to execute Luigi Mangione for the ambush murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
- The government's odds for success are steep, given the hesitancy of death penalty juries in NY.
- In 2023, a death penalty jury could not agree on Sayfullo Saipov, a terrorist who killed 8 people.
On Halloween in 2017, an avowed Islamist extremist named Sayfullo Saipov drove a rental truck across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, then careened south along a popular west-side bike path, sending cyclists flying. Eight people died.
If Saipov's jury failed to send him to death row, there's no way another jury — sitting, like Saipov's, in a federal courtroom in Manhattan — will vote to end the life of Luigi Mangione, former federal prosecutors told Business Insider.
"Honestly I don't believe any Manhattan jury is going to decide to impose the death penalty," said Ephraim Savitt, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice.
Mangione does not fit the profile of a death penalty eligible criminal, he said, speaking Tuesday after Attorney General Pam Bondi said the government will seek the ultimate penalty in the "cold-blooded assassination" of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
"Maybe in Texas," Savitt said. "But it's not a mass shooting. It's not an act of terrorism. It's a horrible crime, of course. But as serious as it is, it does not fit in the rubric of someone who should be put to death."
He added, "Mangione is not going to be sentenced to death."
Mangione is facing charges in three jurisdictions.
The least serious are the weapons and forgery charges out of Pennsylvania, where the 26-year-old software developer from Maryland was arrested after a five-day manhunt.
He is also facing state-level charges of murder as an act of terror out of Manhattan, where DA Alvin Bragg has said that Mangione would be tried first.
Mangione's federal jury would be chosen from the Southern District of New York, which includes people from Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester County, and five other counties on the southern end of the state.
In federal court, now that this is an official death penalty case, a single trial jury would preside over a phase to determine Mangione's guilt and then another to determine how he should be punished.
There's a strategy in seeking the death penalty
The jury would be comprised only of people who are willing to impose a death penalty, tilting it in the government's favor, Ephraim said.
"It improves your odds of a conviction, absolutely," said Savitt, of the Ephraim Savitt Law Firm in Manhattan.
That's one of two key strategic benefits to seeking the death penalty, former prosecutors said, even if an ultimate verdict of death may be unlikely.
Another strategic benefit to seeking the death penalty is it gives the government "great leverage" in plea negotiations, said another former federal prosecutor, Michael Bachner.
"If you're the defense lawyer you may want to work it out as a package — he pleads to both cases and there's no death penalty," said Bachner, now in private practice at Bachner & Associates.
In Mangione's favor is that a death penalty verdict must be unanimous. The defense need only persuade one juror that Mangione does not deserve the death penalty, Bachner and Saviott said.
Both former prosecutors said, strategy aside, the real benefit to seeking the death penalty is political.
The top count against Mangione — murder through the use of a firearm in the commission of crimes of violence — is death penalty eligible, and President Donald Trump has promised to seek executions in all eligible cases.
"I think seeking the death penalty in this case is a reaction to Donald Trump's previous statements," said Bachner.
Should the case go to trial, and a death penalty phase be necessary, much of the evidence would center on Mangione's mental health, Bachner said.
"Just in the evidence that's in the papers, his behavior, his writings, his break with his parents, and although there was planning, he certainly is not all there," Bachner said.
"And juries are not going to convict a 26-year-old kid who's had no violence in the past, and may have mental issues, and who comes from a good family," he added.
"I don't think there's any jury anywhere that would unanimously impose the death penalty on Luigi Mangione," he said.
A split jury, no matter how small the split, would mean that Mangione would face life in prison without parole.
