The Justice Department was pressed to indict Luigi Mangione on federal charges so that the possibility of the death penalty might discourage copycats, Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Mangione was accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month. On Monday, he pleaded not guilty to murder and terror charges in a state case that will run parallel to his federal prosecution.
Napolitano, a senior judicial analyst, explained to "Wake Up America" that "the heathcare professional community pressured the Justice Department to indict him in the federal system so that he would be exposed to the death penalty as a message ... to all these crazy kids who are following him as if he is a hero."
The judge, who cited The Wall Street Journal as his source, said that "people are terrified one of [the suspect's admirers] is going to imitate" what he allegedly did in murdering Thompson.
While the federal charges include the possibility of the death penalty, the maximum sentence for the state charges is life in prison without parole.
Napolitano added that it does matter which one of the two trials goes first, and that "I'm not sure which one would go first."
However, although he said that usually the federal trial would come first, in this instance "it would be better if the state goes first, because if [Mangione] is convicted of first degree murder under the state system, then the feds would most likely not want to go through the time and expense of a second trial."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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