Prosecutors cannot use some of the evidence found inside Luigi Mangione’s backpack in Pennsylvania, a New York State judge ruled on Monday.
Those items include a gun magazine, a cellphone, a passport, a wallet and a computer chip, Justice Gregory Carro of State Supreme Court in Manhattan said.
However, items recovered during searches at the Altoona Police Station in Pennsylvania can be admitted, Justice Carro ruled.
In addition, Justice Carro said that only some of the statements made by Mr. Mangione on the day of his arrest, Dec. 9, 2024, would be allowed.
The decision came after prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office spent three weeks arguing that evidence found in Luigi Mangione’s backpack — ammunition, a homemade silencer, a red notebook, handwritten notes and a 3-D-printed gun — should all be allowed into a trial.
Mr. Mangione’s lawyers said that since the officers who arrested him did not have a warrant to search the backpack, evidence found inside it should not be used in the trial. The police also failed to read Mr. Mangione his Miranda rights and ignored his request to remain silent by continuing to ask him questions, his lawyers said.
Mr. Mangione is accused of killing Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, as Mr. Thompson walked into a Midtown hotel to prepare for an investor conference on the morning of Dec. 4, 2024. Surveillance footage showed that as Mr. Thompson walked toward the hotel’s entrance, a man in a hoodie emerged from between parked cars, leveled a handgun affixed with a silencer and fired.
The killing and the brazen way it was conducted shocked many Americans. But some rallied around the gunman, viewing the killing as a manifestation of Americans’ frustration with rising health care costs. Law enforcement agencies in New York launched a nationwide manhunt.
Five days later, officers in Altoona, Pa., arrested Mr. Mangione in a McDonald’s in connection with the killing.
The focus of the ruling on Monday was what happened in the minutes after Altoona officers approached Mr. Mangione, as he sat with a steak, egg and cheese McMuffin and a Hash Brown, scrolling on a laptop. His black backpack sat next to him.
Within a half-hour, after he had given the officers a fake driver’s license, the police handcuffed Mr. Mangione. As he was led outside, body camera footage shows two officers searching the bag on a table. They pulled out a sandwich, a bag of sliced bread and an ammunition magazine wrapped in wet underwear.
Officers searched the backpack again at the Altoona police station, where one officer announced that she had found a handgun, according to body camera footage. A supervisor instructed her to move the bag away from where Mr. Mangione was being processed and into a hallway. The officer then began pulling out more items, including the silencer. The police later searched the bag for a third time.
In court last year, Mr. Mangione’s lawyers pointed to moments when officers were recorded in body camera footage asking colleagues if they should get a warrant before rifling through the backpack. Altoona officers, who were called to testify, defended their actions, testifying they followed Pennsylvania law and their department’s policies.
Beyond what was found in the backpack, prosecutors have said they have collected hundreds of hours of video tracking the gunman’s path — and another discarded backpack that contained a piece of chewed gum — and have linked Mr. Mangione’s DNA to items the gunman discarded during his flight after the shooting.
They have a flash drive that was on a necklace that Mr. Mangione wore when he was arrested. And there is the fake New Jersey license that Mr. Mangione gave officers, which prosecutors say matches one used at an Upper West Side hostel where the gunman is believed to have stayed.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Mr. Mangione with 11 counts, including murder and terrorism. Days later, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged him on four counts. He also faces charges in Pennsylvania.
Since then, both cases in New York have narrowed.
In the state case, Justice Carro dismissed a terrorism charge, saying that he had found the evidence to support it “legally insufficient.” Mr. Mangione still faces a state charge of second-degree murder, for which he could receive a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted.
He is scheduled to go on trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in September.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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