NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge said Monday she will hold a brief hearing within the next two weeks on procedures that police say allowed them to seize and search the backpack of Luigi Mangione when he was arrested in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said the hearing in the death penalty case will be limited to one witness: an officer with the Altoona Police Department in Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested in December 2024.
She said the officer must have “sufficient authority and experience to demonstrate the established or standardized procedures being used at the time of Mangione’s arrest” “for the protection, protection and, if applicable, inventory of the personal property of a person arrested in a public place.”
She ordered prosecutors to work with Mangione’s attorneys on an appropriate hearing date and have him return to court earlier than the scheduled Jan. 30 meeting. Garnett said that because the focus of the hearing was on procedure, the officers called as witnesses “did not need to have any personal involvement” in Mangione’s arrest.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges that could have resulted in life in prison.
Mangione’s attorneys want Garnett to bar prosecutors from using certain items found in the backpack, including a gun that police say matches the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which Mangione allegedly described his intention to “attack” a health insurance executive. They echoed their argument at a recent state court hearing that the search was illegal because police had not obtained a warrant.
Mangione was arrested while eating breakfast on Dec. 9, 2024, after police began searching backpacks at McDonald’s restaurants, five days after Thompson was killed while heading to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Altoona is located approximately 230 miles (approximately 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Prosecutors said the officers’ search of the bag was legal because Altoona police rules require that a suspect’s property be searched for dangerous items immediately upon arrest, and police later obtained a search warrant. Among the items found at McDonald’s was a loaded gun magazine, according to officials’ testimony at a recent court hearing.
Police continued to search the bag at the police station and found the gun and silencer. They conducted what was called an inventory search and found notebooks and other notes, including what appeared to be to-do lists and possible escape plans, according to testimony. Altoona police policy also requires searches, which include cataloging every piece of property seized from a suspect, prosecutors said.
The law on how police obtain search warrants is complex and often controversial in criminal cases.
As part of the investigation, Garnett ordered federal prosecutors to provide her with a copy of an affidavit to obtain a federal search warrant in the matter. Mangione’s attorneys argued that searching the backpack before obtaining a warrant could have affected how the affidavit was written, but prosecutors said the document did not mention specific details about the items, such as the writing on the notebook.
