Six days after Sept. 11, 2001, as New York City reeled from the worst terrorist attacks on United States soil, lawmakers in Albany passed sweeping antiterrorism laws. Since then, prosecutors have used them infrequently.
But last week, the Manhattan district attorney’s office leveled a terrorism charge against Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old man accused of killing a health insurance executive, classifying the crime not just as a murder but also as an attack on democracy.
Prosecutors’ decision to characterize the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, as a political act will test the law. And it will have implications beyond the courtroom.
The defendant, who carried a handwritten manifesto decrying the American health care system, has been cast as a martyr by some people sympathetic to his apparent philosophy — and the charges could strengthen that perception. Some have criticized what they see as a judgment by the authorities that the killing of a wealthy executive is more important than the deaths of the anonymous poor. And as a practical matter, terrorism could be a more difficult charge to prove than second-degree murder.
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has argued that the terrorism charge is warranted because the gunman’s action was meant to do more than kill Mr. Thompson — it was meant to send a message to the public. Mr. Mangione, he said at a news conference last week, intended to “sow fear.”
“This type of premeditated, targeted gun violence cannot and will not be tolerated,” Mr. Bragg said.
Zachary W. Carter, who served as the United States attorney in Brooklyn in the 1990s, said that based on what has been made public about Mr. Thompson’s killing, it “fits the definition of terrorism.”
New York’s terrorism laws allow for stiffer sentences for certain offenses and can be applied in a variety of circumstances. For a crime to be considered terrorism, the government must prove that the perpetrator intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a unit of government or affect the conduct of a unit of government.
Prosecutors can use criminal charges both as a means to punish people for what they have done and as a way to deter other people from similar acts in the future, said Michael F. Bachner, a defense lawyer and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
In the case of Mr. Mangione, he said, prosecutors most likely wanted to send a message to “anyone thinking that they can try and change policy, whether in the government or corporate policy, by killing people.”
But applying terrorism charges to a case in which prosecutors believe the broader target was a specific industry, rather than the government or the public at large, is unusual.
James M. McGuire, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office who also served as an appellate court judge, noted that the law describes a defendant’s intent to terrorize “a civilian population” or influence the government.
“It’s hard to conclude that the Legislature intended the phrase ‘civilian population’ to encompass persons working for health insurers who make coverage decisions,” Mr. McGuire said.
State prosecutors have applied terrorism charges sparingly over the years.
The first person convicted under the 2001-era laws was Edgar Morales, a member of a street gang who was charged in a 2002 shooting that resulted in the death of a 10-year-old girl. In 2012, the State Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, saying gang activity did not meet the criteria for an act of terror.
More recently, Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican-born cleric, was convicted in Manhattan last year of supporting terrorism after prosecutors portrayed him as a jihadist who had supported ISIS. Earlier this year, a Manhattan woman was convicted of using cryptocurrency to fund terrorism after sending money to several groups operating in Syria. In November, a man who was arrested at Pennsylvania Station in 2022 after making threats online of “shooting up a synagogue” was sentenced to 10 years after pleading guilty to possessing a weapon as a crime of terrorism.
And in Buffalo, Payton Gendron, a white man who killed 10 Black people in a racist massacre at a supermarket in May 2022, became the first person in the state to be convicted of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, a newer addition to the state’s terrorism laws that carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.
Complicating the terrorism case against Mr. Mangione is the public’s reaction to the crime he is accused of.
Mr. Mangione faces an 11-count indictment in state court, including three murder charges. He is also facing federal charges, one of which carries the possibility of the death penalty, as well as charges in Pennsylvania.
In a court appearance last week, Mr. Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, described her client as “overcharged.” He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
The case has transfixed Americans from the moment the first details became public on the morning of Dec. 4.
Surveillance footage showed a gunman walking up behind Mr. Thompson that morning as he neared the doors of a Hilton hotel on West 54th Street in Manhattan. The man lifted a handgun fitted with a suppressor and shot Mr. Thompson once in the back and once in the leg before fleeing the scene — heading uptown on an e-bike and then leaving the state, the police said. Almost immediately, the police began a manhunt, canvassing the city and releasing images of the person being sought.
The authorities said they found shell casings and a bullet at the scene with the words “deny,” “depose” and “delay” written on them — likely references to health insurers and how they respond to claims. They have also pointed to the manifesto, which described hostility toward the health insurance industry and its wealthy executives.
In response, many Americans openly voiced support for the gunman, hoping he would evade capture. Social media was awash in anger toward health insurance companies.
A recent Emerson College poll found that while 68 percent of those polled said that the killer’s actions were unacceptable, 41 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 said they found them acceptable.
On Monday, as Mr. Mangione was arraigned in a criminal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, a group of protesters gathered outside. Some shared stories of negative experiences with insurers that left them with pain and expensive medical bills.
They chanted, “Free Luigi!”
Ms. Friedman Agnifilo has also expressed concern about her client’s right to a fair trial, in part because his case has become politicized. She described Mr. Mangione’s perp walk after he was extradited to New York last week, during which he was accompanied by Mayor Eric Adams, as “absolutely unnecessary” and “utterly political.”
All of these circumstances could make jury selection especially challenging.
Given the publicity and public discourse around the case, it will be difficult to find people who do not already have “their minds made up about his guilt,” said David E. Patton, who worked as a federal public defender.
Ellen Brickman, a director at DOAR, a New York City trial-consulting firm, said lawyers on both sides will most likely be paying attention to whether potential jurors have extreme views about health insurance companies, whether they think violence is ever an acceptable response and how much they understand about mental health issues.
“I think generally positive or negative feelings about health insurers are not necessarily going to translate into a belief that a health insurance executive should be murdered,” she said.
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