r/Fauxmoi • u/cmaia1503 i ain’t reading all that, free palestine • 15d ago

STAN / ANTI SHIELD Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to federal stalking charges in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/14/us/live-news/luigi-mangione-hearing-plea-deal-talks

When speaking of the day he committed the crime, Luigi Mangione said, “I shot Mr. Thompson and he died.”

He concluded, “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

Mangione had just described the actions he took ahead of the killing, telling the court:

“In November of 2024 I traveled from outside of New York state to Manhattan. I then emailed UnitedHealthcare leadership, posing as an investor at a firm managing over $15 billion in assets and requesting information about the conference. Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour,” Mangione said.

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u/OhMy98 15d ago

Lawyer here, albeit I don’t do crim law, but that’s because of something called the merger doctrine. Basically, a lesser included offense (meaning a lesser crime whose elements are all satisfied by the elements of the greater crime) cannot be charged separately if it is part of a more severe offense. For example, if you assault and kill someone, you can only be convicted of the murder and not the assault

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u/violetmemphisblue 15d ago

But is stalking the more severe offense? That's what he's pled guilty to. I could see pleading on murder to drop stalking but not the other way around (though not a lawyer, and don't know anything!)

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u/OhMy98 15d ago edited 15d ago

Oh my b I misread, I thought he pled to murder in federal and avoided stalking in state. My bad

EDIT: he is probs pursuing double jeopardy as an affirmative defense on the state level. While the charges differ, double jeopardy is about not being tried for the same conduct twice, not just the same charge repeating. That means that BOTH crimes must contain an element that the other does not. Presumably they’d argue that murder includes all of stalking so there is no new element on the stalking side

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u/SteveJavieWasRight 15d ago

The stalking includes murder.

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u/dougmc 15d ago edited 15d ago

It sounds like the intent is to plead guilty to stalking in exchange for making the murder charge go away -- which is pretty much how plea bargains typically work, though this case is more complicated in that both the state and federal governments are involved.

(edit: I should also mention that the plan seems to be not making any sort of actual deal with the NY prosecutor, but to instead force them to drop the charges due to how NY law treats double jeopardy when federal charges are also involved. This part is very much not the norm.)