Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty if convicted of killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, a federal court has ruled. > > US District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed the federal firearms charges against the 27-year-old that carried the possibility of the death penalty. > > But she left in place stalking charges against him that can bring a maximum punishment of life in prison. … > Jury selection in the federal trial is scheduled to begin on 8 September with opening statements due to start on 13 October. > > But state prosecutors are seeking to try Mangione as soon as July. > > In her ruling, Judge Garnett, a Biden appointee, said two of the four federal charges did not “meet the federal statutory definition of a ‘crime of violence’ as matter of law”. > > She noted that her decision was “solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury”. > > Garnett’s ruling was a setback for the justice department, which had called Thompson’s murder a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination”. > > The judge has given the government 30 days to challenge her decision ruling out the death penalty in the Mangione case. > > In a win for prosecutors, Garnett said they could present evidence to the jury from Mangione’s backpack that he had at the time of his arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. > > Among the items in the bag were a gun, fake IDs and a notebook with writings that allegedly detailed Mangione’s grievances against the US healthcare system. > > Defence attorneys had sought to dismiss that evidence from trial, arguing that authorities obtained it illegally without a warrant.