Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a federal judge on Wednesday to push his murder trial back until early next year, arguing that they cannot prepare for a separate state trial at the same time.
Mr. Mangione is set to go on trial in June in state court in Manhattan for the killing of a health care executive, Brian Thompson, outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in December 2024. Jury selection in his federal trial is scheduled to begin in September.
In their letter on Wednesday, Mr. Mangione’s lawyers told the judge, Margaret Garnett, that they had discussed their request to delay his federal trial with prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and they had opposed the idea.
The federal prosecutors are expected to respond to the defense request in a separate letter to Judge Garnett, Mr. Mangione’s lawyers wrote.
“As a result of these competing schedules,” the lawyers said, “Mr. Mangione is now in the position of needing to prepare for two complicated and serious trials at the same time.”
“This scenario violates several of Mr. Mangione’s constitutional rights,” his lawyers said.
Mr. Mangione’s request and the prospect that the government will oppose it come as the state and federal government jockey to be the first to try Mr. Mangione in the widely watched case. His lawyers have called it a “tug of war between two different prosecution offices.”
In Manhattan federal court, Mr. Mangione had faced a charge that carried a potential death penalty, which the judge later dismissed. He is still charged with two offenses that each carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
In state court, Mr. Mangione was indicted on 11 counts, including two terrorism charges that were later dismissed. He still faces state charges that include second-degree murder, for which he could be sentenced to 25 years to life.
Mr. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all of the federal and state charges.
As recently as late January, Mr. Mangione’s lawyers said they had “every intention” of following the schedule in federal court set by Judge Garnett.
The defense team’s letter on Wednesday signaled how that had changed.
The five-day manhunt for Mr. Thompson’s killer drew intense national interest, both from people who were horrified by the killing and others who saw the act as a protest against the health care system.
While murder cases are typically prosecuted in state courts, federal prosecutors stepped in and brought their own charges. It appeared that state and federal prosecutors had made an agreement that the state trial would go first.
In February, the judge overseeing the state case, Justice Gregory Carro, said it appeared that federal prosecutors had “reneged” on that agreement when they pushed for their trial to begin this year, before a trial date had been scheduled in state court. Justice Carro said the if the federal trial were pushed back, the state trial would be delayed, from June to September.
Mr. Mangione’s lawyers have argued that having two trials raises issues of double jeopardy, the legal principle that says that a defendant may not be prosecuted twice for the same crime.
Joel Seidemann, a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, argued in the February hearing that Mr. Mangione’s lawyers were attempting to delay the state trial and have it follow the federal trial to ensure the state case could not proceed, under the principal of double jeopardy.
“This is a delay that they’re seeking to lock the courtroom,” he said, “to deprive us of our right to try this case.”
At the end of the February state court hearing, Mr. Mangione, as he was being led from the courtroom in shackles, spoke out, saying, “It’s the same trial twice — one plus one is two.”
“Double jeopardy by any common-sense definition,” he could be heard saying, as his lawyers tried to quiet him.
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly.
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