Next Up for Mangione: Double Jeopardy Fight

Luigi Mangione's guilty plea in federal court is his opening move to shut down a looming state murder trial, the Wall Street Journal reports. The 28-year-old admitted Friday to stalking and killing health insurance executive Brian Thompson, then immediately asked a New York judge to throw out a separate state case, calling it an unconstitutional rerun of the same crime. His lawyers argue state and federal prosecutors worked in lockstep from the day of his arrest, turning him into "a pawn in parallel prosecutions" and violating both New York's double jeopardy law and his right to due process.

The defense is leaning on a 2019 ruling that wiped out New York mortgage-fraud charges against Paul Manafort because they tracked his earlier federal case too closely. Here, they say, both governments are effectively prosecuting "the identical murder." Prosecutors have counterexamples on their side—Derek Chauvin's dual federal and state cases over George Floyd's death among them—and are expected to argue the state murder and weapons counts are legally distinct from the federal stalking charges. The Manhattan DA says it intends to keep its case alive while Mangione awaits his Dec. 18 federal sentencing, which could be anything from a term of years to life in prison, CNN reports. His state trial is expected to start in three weeks, CBS News reports. (The AP has more on how his defense team may be trying to avoid a life sentence.)