Judge will rule whether to suppress key evidence in Luigi Mangione’s New York murder trial

By Nicki Brown, Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) — Luigi Mangione, the 28-year-old accused of killing a healthcare company executive, will appear Monday in court where a judge will decide whether the alleged murder weapon and other key evidence can be allowed into his state murder case.

Mangione’s attorneys argue police illegally searched his backpack when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s in December 2024, days after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot on a busy Manhattan sidewalk.

Police recovered several items from Mangione’s bag that authorities say tie him to the killing, including a 3D-printed gun, a loaded magazine and writings detailing frustrations with the healthcare industry.

Mangione’s defense attorneys are pushing for those items, and the backpack’s other contents, to be barred from the state’s case since they allege it was searched illegally without a warrant. Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have denied the defense claims and insisted the searches were legal and proper.

If New York State Judge Gregory Carro rules in favor of Mangione, prosecutors may not be allowed to show jurors key pieces of evidence, including the alleged murder weapon and the so-called “manifesto.”

The defense team is also moving to suppress any statements Mangione made to law enforcement before his December 19, 2024, extradition to New York, arguing police did not properly read his Miranda warnings – which advise a person of their rights to remain silent and consult an attorney – before they began questioning him.

Carro’s anticipated ruling comes months after a nine-day suppression hearing that included hours of footage from police body-worn cameras showing how the arrest unfolded and testimony from multiple law enforcement officers about the searches.

The case has generated a national debate and put a spotlight on public sentiment about the American healthcare system. Mangione has seen an outpouring of support on social media and at the courthouse, even as officials – including then-Attorney General Pam Bondi – have roundly condemned the killing as a “cold-blooded assassination.”

The Ivy League graduate faces second-degree murder and eight other charges in the state’s case, which is scheduled to go to trial in September. He is also facing federal charges related to Thompson’s killing, in addition to state charges in Pennsylvania stemming from his arrest. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Mangione’s defense attempted to get much of the same evidence thrown out of the federal prosecution, but the judge overseeing that case denied their motion earlier this year.

“[T]he entire contents of the Backpack fall squarely within several exceptions to the warrant requirement,” US District Court Judge Margaret Garnett wrote in her January order.

Although Garnett sided with federal prosecutors on the backpack evidence, Mangione’s defense team has won other legal victories, including getting the top charges in his New York state and federal cases dismissed – which consequently removed the death penalty from the latter case.

However, even if the items from the bag are barred from the state trial, officials say they still have other evidence connecting Mangione to the scene of the crime. His DNA and fingerprints were recovered from several items discarded by the shooter near the crime scene, prosecutors said in court documents.

Was the backpack search legal?

Police responded to a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a manager called 911 to report one of the patrons looked like the suspect in the recent CEO shooting in New York City. Bodycam footage shows two officers approaching Mangione, who was sitting in a corner of the restaurant with a plastic bag and brown paper bag on the table in front of him. A black backpack was on the ground near his feet, the police testified at the December hearing.

When the officers asked Mangione for identification, he told them his name was Mark Rosario and handed them a fake New Jersey driver’s license bearing that name, they testified. Prosecutors say the shooting suspect used a New Jersey license with the same name to check into a Manhattan hostel days before the killing.

About 20 minutes later, after police warned him against using a false name, he told them his real name was Luigi Mangione.

As officers took down his personal information, one asked Mangione why he initially lied about his name.

“I clearly shouldn’t have,” Mangione responded.

Shortly after, a police officer read Mangione his Miranda rights before he was frisked and handcuffed behind his back.

Police began searching through his backpack on a table at the restaurant and removed a loaded magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear as well as a Faraday bag – which blocks cell signals – containing a passport, a phone and a wallet.

Officers transported the bag to the Altoona police station, where they continued searching the bag and recovered multiple articles of clothing, toiletry items, a silencer and a 3D-printed gun. The District Attorney’s Office says the weapon matches ballistic evidence from the Manhattan crime scene.

At the station, police methodically took pictures of Mangione’s property, including pages of handwritten entries from a red notebook that the District Attorney’s Office has described as a “manifesto.”

“I finally feel confident about what I will do. The details are coming together. And I don’t feel any doubt about whether it’s right/justified,” Mangione wrote in an entry dated August 2024, according to prosecutors’ court filings. “I’m glad-in a way-that I’ve procrastinated [because] it allowed me to learn more about [UnitedHealthcare].”

“The target is insurance. It checks every box,” he wrote, according to the filings.

During the December hearing, two officers acknowledged they read some of the writings as they photographed the pages.

Police did not seek a search warrant for the bag until later that evening, about seven hours after they first opened the backpack, Mangione’s defense attorneys wrote in a court filing. Prosecutors said Altoona officials sought the warrant to facilitate the transfer of Mangione’s belongings to New York investigators, not to authorize the search of his possessions.

The District Attorney’s Office argues police were justified in searching the bag because they were concerned about public safety and properly followed procedures for searching and cataloging an arrestee’s possessions. The evidence could also be permitted if prosecutors prove it would have been inevitably discovered legally during the course of the investigation.

The defense argues the searches were outside the scopes of the various search policies and police were illegally looking for incriminating evidence rather than performing legitimate safety or inventory searches.

Can his alleged statements be used?

Mangione’s defense attorneys are also trying to throw out alleged statements he made to law enforcement before his extradition to New York – which encompasses most of his conversations with police at the McDonald’s as well as things he allegedly told officers while in a police car, at court and behind bars in Pennsylvania.

At the December hearing, a police officer who accompanied Mangione to his arraignment in Pennsylvania testified the defendant looked at the sea of reporters at the courthouse and said, “All these people here for a mass murderer. Wild.”

Corrections officer Tomas Rivers testified that while Mangione was in custody, they discussed the differences between private and nationalized healthcare as well as media coverage of the case. Another corrections officer said Mangione told him he had a backpack with foreign currency and a 3D-printed gun.

However, both said they did not tell anyone about these conversations until they were questioned by prosecutors last year.

Mangione’s attorneys say his statements should be tossed because law enforcement violated his right to counsel and illegally interrogated him both before he was read his Miranda warnings and after he invoked his right to remain silent.

The District Attorney’s Office argued officers properly questioned Mangione and all of his statements should be admissible.

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