Why political assassination cases aren't automatically death penalty eligible
The alleged assassination plots tied to Luigi Mangione and Tyler Robinson were chillingly deliberate, prosecutors say, yet both cases stumbled over the same unexpected hurdle — U.S. law doesn’t offer a clear path to the top penalty when there is a political motive but the victim doesn't come from a protected category.
Mangione, 27, is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024. He allegedly wrote political messages on shell casings recovered from the scene.
Months later, Robinson, 22, was accused of sniping Charlie Kirk as he spoke to a crowd at Utah Valley University in September, and in an alleged copycat twist, also left behind casings with messages engraved in them.
Thompson, 50, and Kirk, 31, were both married fathers of two. Both of their murders have an alleged political motive. Yet prosecutors in each case have been forced to get creative with how they charged them in order to seek the maximum possible punishments — life without parole in New York and execution in Utah.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office had charged Mangione with terrorism enhancements in order to justify a first-degree murder charge under state law, which could have been punished with a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge threw that charge out, and Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge, which has a maximum penalty of life in prison with the possibility of parole remaining.
While New York has a state-level terror charge, Utah doesn't.
"Interestingly, had [Robinson] been charged in federal court, it would’ve been a terrorist act, committing an act of political terror — but in the state system they don’t have that same statute in charge, so they brought the murder case," said Greg Rogers, a UVU professor and former FBI agent. "It wasn’t that they didn’t believe they could prove a terrorism case in that matter, it was just that it was gonna be charged in state court rather than federal."
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The New York judge overseeing Mangione's case "made a grievous error," he told Fox News Digital.
"They did charge terrorism, because they're actually convinced they could prove it," he said. "Terrorism statutes are, and this isn’t an oversimplification, if you commit a homicide in furtherance of a political motive, which he allegedly did, that satisfies that statute."
"You essentially have a confession in the terrorism case, and in the homicide case you have it on video," he said. "[But] tens of thousands of people not only aren’t even upset with him, they're totally supportive."
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He cited the alleged journals Mangione kept, which referenced the plot and a potential motive as a condemnation of the U.S. health insurance industry — and also Mangione's fervent supporters, who have showed up to his court hearings dressed up in green as a reference to the Luigi character from "Super Mario Bros."
"How did we get to where tens of thousands of our citizens think this is great?" he added.
In Utah, in order to seek the death penalty, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray's office charged Robinson with aggravated murder, alleging that he knowingly created a great risk of death to people in the crowd in addition to Kirk's slaying. That's an aggravating factor under Utah law.
But legal experts say that only a single shot was fired, which the defense is likely to use to challenge that aspect of the case.
"The death penalty was essentially outlawed back in 1972 when the Supreme Court thought that it was being applied arbitrarily," said Matt Mangino, a former district attorney of Lawrence County in Pennsylvania who wrote a book on capital punishment, "The Executioner's Toll, 2010."
To do that, he said, states implemented "bifurcated trials," where jurors decide on life or death after a conviction, and by creating the system of aggravating factors.
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While the laws vary between states, aggravators often include targeting police officers, politicians, witnesses or young children. In Idaho, the aggravator prosecutors wanted to use against Bryan Kohberger was that he killed multiple people — but he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.
"It's no longer just enough to have a planned premeditated murder to be subject to the death sentence," Mangino told Fox News Digital. "There has to be something more."
Business leaders, like Thompson, or political figures who aren't office holders, like Kirk, don't meet those criteria, even if there's an alleged political motive, he said. And premeditated, cold-blooded murders are not uncommon.
"I think what we have to look at is, what does assassination mean? Does assassination mean that you've murdered somebody for some political purpose?" he said. "And that might be hard to really define in a way that it's fair."
Existing aggravators are easy to define, he said: a member of Congress, a young child, a witness expected to testify in an upcoming case.
"How do you define someone who doesn't fit into those specific categories that is outspoken about LGBT issues or is outspoken about immigration, how do you evaluate that?" he said. "I mean how famous do you have to be?"
Kirk was famous as a media personality and political commentator who founded Turning Point USA. Thompson was not a household name before his murder.
Without a clear definition for the crime of assassination, he said, prosecutors are left stretching existing laws — and risking reversals.
"I think you also open the door to the defense coming after you and saying, wait a second, why is my guy getting the death penalty under the aggravated circumstances of assassination when other people who are killed because they're politically motivated aren't getting it?" he added. "It opens the door on both ends, both to victims' families feeling as though they are not getting justice and defendants feeling as if they are being overcharged."
Mangione could still face the potential death penalty if he is convicted of pending federal charges related to Thompson's slaying.