Luigi Mangione should be spared the death penalty because prosecutors are more interested in putting on a “Marvel movie”-esque show than getting justice, his lawyers argued.
The 27-year-old’s legal team called for the entire case to be dismissed, or at the minimum his death penalty provision, saying his perp-walk was staged for the the “political needs of federal and local officials and not for public safety.”
“In a show of force befitting a captured cartel chief or comic book villain, Mr. Mangione, at the time a 26-year-old who had never been in trouble with the law, was ‘perp walked’ before scores of television cameras and press reporters, surrounded by armed law enforcement officials in tactical SWAT gear and raid jackets,” his lawyers said in the 114-page Manhattan Federal Court filing.
Mangione is facing a second-degree murder charge and eight other counts for the cold-blooded killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the company’s investor conference in Midtown late last year.
