(NEW YORK) — One year after prosecutors say Luigi Mangione brazenly assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan, the 27-year-old is back in court Monday for a multi-day hearing that could determine the balance of evidence in his state murder trial.

Mangione’s attorneys are trying to limit prosecutors from using key evidence — including a 3D-printed gun and purported journal writings — police say they obtained when they arrested him in Pennsylvania last year. 

Mangione entered the courtroom and took a seat next to his attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, as nearly two dozen Mangione supporters seated in the back row of the courtroom craned their necks to get a look at the accused killer. Some were dressed in T-shirts displaying slogans about the case, including one saying “Justice is not a spectacle.” 

During the hearing, Mangione leaned on his left hand and stared at a large screen at the front of the courtroom, gazing at images police in New York City disseminated following the murder of Thompson.

The images allegedly depict Mangione at a Starbucks, on a bicycle, at a hostel, in the back of a taxi and with a gun taking aim at Thompson as the United Healthcare chief executive strolled toward the Hilton in Midtown.

The NYPD posted the images to social media following the killing as it asked the public for help identifying the suspect wanted for a “premeditated targeted attack” and announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrest.

With Sgt. Christopher McLaughlin on the witness stand, prosecutor Joel Seidemann played a video of the shooting allegedly depicting Mangione firing more than once, Thompson buckling against the building facade, and Mangione calmly walking by the victim.

Prosecutors seem intent on firmly establishing Mangione as the definitive suspect as the defense raises questions about officers approaching him five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Bernard Pyles, who works for the company that installed security cameras at the McDonald’s, testified Monday that he was asked to retrieve footage for the police.

“We were told there was an arrest made and they need footage,” Pyles said. “We were looking for a certain individual on the footage in order to cut out the pieces they needed.”

On Dec. 9, McDonalds cameras allegedly captured Mangione ordering from a kiosk, waiting at the counter and picking up his order. Mangione is allegedly seen on a different camera carrying his food, taking a seat in a back corner table and wiping it down.

The individual that police identified as Mangione remained at the table 25 minutes before camera showed police officers arriving and confronting him. 

Defense attorneys have argued Altoona police officers questioned Mangione for 20 minutes before reading him his rights, and also searched his backpack without a warrant.

Though no trial date has been set for either Mangione’s state or federal criminal cases, the outcome of this week’s hearing will determine the shape of the case Mangione and his lawyers will face at trial. If they succeed in limiting key evidence, prosecutors could lose the ability to use Mangione’s writings — which prosecutors say paint a clear motive for the crime — and the alleged murder weapon. 

“I finally feel confident about what I will do,” Mangione allegedly wrote in a notebook seized from his backpack, later included in court filings. “The target is insurance. It checks every box.”

This week’s hearing in New York’s State Supreme Court — where Mangione is charged with second-degree murder — follows a legal victory for Mangione’s defense when the judge in September tossed two murder charges related to an act of terrorism. He is still charged with second-degree murder and other offenses, as well as a separate criminal case in federal court. If convicted in state court, Mangione faces a potential life sentence, and he could face the death penalty in his federal case. 

Mangione is accused of gunning down Thompson — a father of two who spent two decades working for UnitedHealthcare before being named its CEO — last December outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel before allegedly fleeing the city. He was arrested on Dec. 9 at the McDonald’s in Altoona after someone reported seeing a “suspicious male that looked like the shooter from New York City.” 

Defense lawyers are trying to bar prosecutors from using any of the evidence recovered from the backpack — including electronic devices, a 3D-printed gun, silencer, and a journal — as well as referencing any statements Mangione made to police. Lawyers with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have defended the lawfulness of the arrest and search and are expected to argue that the evidence would have inevitably been recovered during the discovery process ahead of trial.

“Despite the gravest of consequences for Mr. Mangione, law enforcement has methodically and purposefully trampled his constitutional rights,” Mangione’s attorney argued in their motion. 

Defense lawyers argue the constitutional issues began almost immediately after officers approached Mangione, who was seated in the McDonald’s to have breakfast. After Mangione allegedly provided officers with a fake driver’s license, they immediately began questioning Mangione about whether he was recently in New York and why he lied about his identity, defense lawyers say. As he was questioned, defense lawyers say officers filled the restaurant to form an “armed human wall trapping Mr. Mangione at the back of the restaurant.”  

Citing time-stamped police body camera footage, Mangione’s attorneys allege police waited 20 minutes to read his Miranda Rights and extensively questioned him without informing him he was under investigation or that he had the right to remain silent. They have asked New York State Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro to prohibit prosecutors from introducing any evidence or testimony related to what they say was an illegal interrogation at the McDonald’s. 

Defense lawyers also contend that an officer illegally searched Mangione’s bag while he was being interrogated, eventually discovering a loaded magazine and handgun. Despite another officer commenting, “at this point we probably need a search warrant” for the bag, Mangione’s attorneys argue that the officer continued searching the bag and claimed she was trying to make sure there “wasn’t a bomb or anything” in the bag. 

“[The officer] did not search the bag because she reasonably thought there might be a bomb, but rather this was an excuse designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack,” they argue. “This made-up bomb claim further shows that even she believed at the time that there were constitutional issues with her search, forcing her to attempt to salvage this debacle by making this spurious claim.” 

Mangione’s attorneys argue that any of the items recovered from the backpack, including his alleged writings and weapon, should be limited as “fruit” of an illegal search. 

Ahead of the hearing, Mangione’s attorneys have previewed plans to call at least two witnesses from the Altoona Police Department. During an unrelated court hearing last week, one of Mangione’s attorneys claimed that the hearing could include more than two dozen witnesses and hours of body camera footage. 

Judge Carro has set aside several days beginning Monday to hear arguments about whether the testimony and evidence can be suppressed.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court has disqualified President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Alina Habba from serving as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court decision that found her appointment violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

Trump nominated Habba to the U.S. attorney post but she was not confirmed by the Senate.  When district court judges declined to appoint her to the position, the administration installed her by formally withdrawing her nomination then placing her in a role that allowed her to serve in the position, in what a U.S. district judge called a “novel series of legal and personnel moves.”

The appeals court ruled the maneuver was improper.

“Habba is not the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey by virtue of her appointment as First Assistant U.S. Attorney because only the first assistant in place at the time the vacancy arises automatically assumes the functions and duties of the office under the FVRA,” the court wrote, referring to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

“Additionally, because Habba was nominated for the vacant U.S. Attorney position, the FVRA’s nomination bar prevents her from assuming the role of Acting U.S. Attorney. Finally, the Attorney General’s delegation of all the powers of a U.S. Attorney to Habba is prohibited by the FVRA’s exclusivity provision,” the opinion said.

The ruling marks the first time a federal appeals court has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to keep interim U.S. attorneys in their posts after their temporary appointments lapse, potentially resulting in nationwide implications for federal prosecutors installed in the same way as Habba. 

After Habba’s interim appointment expired and the district court sought to put in a new top prosecutor, the Trump administration placed her in a lower position — First Assistant U.S. Attorney — that allowed her to assume the top job once her original nomination was withdrawn. 

In a 3-0 decision, the appeals court concluded that Habba’s original nomination for the U.S. attorney position barred her from assuming the acting job. The court also rejected the argument that the attorney general has the power to delegate the powers of U.S. attorney to Habba. 

The ruling from the three-judge panel — composed of two judges put on the bench by George W. Bush and one by Joe Biden — comes on the heels of a high-profile decision last week disqualifying Trump’s handpicked prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, who had brought criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

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