Luigi Mangione returns to court Friday as a judge weighs certain evidence from his federal death penalty case in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The hearing will determine whether Mangione’s backpack was lawfully seized and searched during his arrest.
AP reports U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett seeks testimony about procedures police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, said allowed them to seize and inspect Mangione’s backpack when they arrested him on Dec. 9, 2024, five days after Thompson was gunned down in Manhattan.
A supporter of Luigi Mangione demonstrates outside of court as Mangione attends a hearing in New York City on September 16, 2025. (TIMOTHY A.CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Garnett said the hearing will be limited to just one witness: an officer from the Altoona police department.
The city is about 230 miles west of Manhattan. The AP report further relates:
That officer called to testify must have “sufficient authority and experience to testify about the established or standardized procedures in use” at the time of Mangione’s arrest “for securing, safeguarding, and, if applicable, inventorying the personal property of a person arrested in a public place,” the judge said.
Because the hearing will focus on procedures, the officer being called as a witness “need not have had any personal involvement” in Mangione’s arrest, Garnett said.
Mangione is also scheduled to be in court again in the federal case on Jan. 30 for a status conference. Garnett has said jury selection in his trial could begin as early as September.
The 27-year-old has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges, which carry the possibility of life in prison.
Attorney General Pam Bondi last year directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the accused murderer.
Thompson was shot down on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind.
Following the shooting, authorities with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) described Thompson’s death as an apparent “brazen targeted attack,” Breitbart News reported December 4.
Video footage shows the chilling moment Thompson was fatally shot.
Officers began searching the backpack at the McDonald’s restaurant where Mangione was arrested after the shooting while eating breakfast.
Mangione is accused of plotting the assassination in order to sow terror in the health insurance industry, which he allegedly railed against in a journal police seized during his arrest in Pennsylvania days after the shooting, prosecutors say.