The long-running pretrial suppression hearings in the case against Luigi Mangione, accused of gunning down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, wrapped up on Thursday morning after nine days of hearings. The judge asked both parties to file written submissions and said he would make a final decision in May about what evidence will be admitted at the upcoming trial. 

Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro gave the defense until January 29 and prosecutors until March 5 to summarize their arguments in writing and said he would consequently rule on May 18.

Mr. Mangione will spend the intervening months incarcerated across the East River at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which has charged Mr. Mangione with the murder of Thompson, rested their case after calling seventeen witnesses in the suppression hearings, which began on December 1, and included several police officers from Altoona, Pennsylvania, who arrested Mr. Mangione at a local McDonald’s there last year. 

Five days after Thompson was fatally shot on a midtown Manhattan street, a customer at the Altoona fast food restaurant, about 230 miles west of New York City, altered the manager that a suspicious man eating his breakfast in a far corner of the establishment resembled the suspected shooter from New York. The manager called 911, and within an hour Mr. Mangione was arrested for forgery because he provided officers with a fake driver’s license from New Jersey. That same license under the name Mark Rosario, New York investigators believed, was used by the murder suspect to check into a youth hostel in the Bloomingdale neighborhood just north of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. 

Defense attorneys have argued that the arrest of their client was conducted unlawfully because Mr. Mangione was questioned by police officers without being read his Miranda warning for close to twenty minutes and his backpack was searched without a warrant. Therefore, they argued, the evidence seized during the arrest and statements made by Mr. Mangione should not be admissible at trial.

The evidence is crucial for the trial, because it includes a 3-D printed handgun that was found inside Mr. Mangione’s backpack, which investigators say matches the shell casings found at the crime scene. Police officers also recovered a red notebook with handwritten notes by Mr. Mangione about his disdain for the healthcare industry. Prosecutors argue these notes state his motive for the killing. 

Prosecutors called numerous officers from the Altoona police department, who testified that they did not need a warrant to search Mr. Mangione’s backpack because it was an “incident search to an arrest,” a policy whereby the police has the right to search a suspect and his belongings when he is being arrested to make sure there are no bombs or weapons that could harm the public or the officers.   

No witnesses were called on Thursday morning. However, lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo asked the judge that prosecutors correct a statement released by the New York Police Department made in reference to Mr. Mangione’s mother. 

Very little has been heard from Mr. Mangione’s family, a wealthy real estate family in the Baltimore area. During a press conference in 2024, the NYPD Chief of Detectives, Joseph Kenny, alleged that Mr. Mangione’s mother, Kathleen Mangione, told police that the shooting “might be something she could see him (her son) doing.” 

According to media reports, Ms. Mangione filed a missing person report with the San Francisco Police Department on November 18. It is believed that her son had stopped communicating with his family several months before Thompson was shot in New York on December 4. 

But on Thursday Ms. Agnifilo told the judge that Mr. Mangione’s mother never told any officer that her son would be capable of committing murder. “She actually said Luigi has not made any suicidal ideation statements and was not a risk to himself or others,” the attorney argued.   

Assistant district attorney Joel Seidemann did not respond directly, instead he defended entering the bodywork camera footage into the hearings, which the judge agreed had been necessary. 

The defense scored one victory, when on Tuesday prosecutors withdrew any statements related to the interrogation of Mr. Mangione by NYPD detectives at the Altoona police station, including statements Mr. Mangione made when he was alone inside the interrogation room.     

Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo pointed out that Pennsylvania is a two-party-consent state, meaning all parties must consent to being recorded on video or audio, and Mr. Mangione was never informed that the room he was brought into was wiretapped. 

Mr. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He faces charges in three separate jurisdictions related to the murder of Thompson, in Pennsylvania state court, where he is charged with forgery among other charges, in New York state court, and in federal court, where federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. 

The next hearing is scheduled at the Southern District of New York for January 9.