Luigi Mangione says that Bondi’s death penalty offer is an Instagram blow

The lawyers of Luigi Mangione asked a federal court on Friday to prohibit prosecutors from asking for the death penalty against him, arguing that the recently announced decision of the prosecutor general Pam Bondi to do so was “explicitly and without political vengog”.

Mr. Mangione, 26, was charged with the fatal shooting of December 4 of a health care manager, Brian Thompson, 50, while heading for a conference early in the morning at the New York Hilton Midtown. On April 1, Ms. Bondi announced that she had ordered prosecutors to ask the capital punishment in the case “when we realize President Trump’s agenda to arrest violent crimes and make America again secure”.

Mr. Mangione’s lawyers argued that Ms. Bondi’s real reason by making the announcement was to withdraw the attention of the press, noting that she discussed her decision in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” and “published her order publicly so that she had” content “for her new Instagram account”.

They said that she had also violated the Protocols of the Ministry of Justice to ensure that such decisions were made in a fair and coherent manner. These protocols include the leash of defense lawyers Make detailed written and oral presentations to an American prosecutor’s office and those responsible for the Ministry of Justice in Washington. A committee of the Department generally issues a recommendation to the Attorney General, which makes the final decision.

Lawyers said the Ministry of Justice Trump ignored his request to take three months to investigate and prepare a thorough argument against the death penalty. Lawyers could not make written and oral presentations to the government in January, in the decreasing days of the Biden administration.

“These are not normal times,” the lawyers for Mr. Mangione wrote.

By directing the prosecutors of the Office of the American Prosecutor for the South New York district to ask for the death penalty “without allowing themselves a minimum of processes,” said lawyers, Ms. Bondi “was in accordance with the new culture of the highest levels of the Ministry of Justice, which values ​​personal will, advertising for discretion and partisan policy.”