Manhattan prosecutors tell the judge Luigi Mangione's state murder case can go forward despite his federal guilty plea.

Double jeopardy is the whole fight now. Mangione admitted the federal stalking counts in August. Prosecutors say stalking and murder are different crimes with different elements, so New York can still try him. His lawyers say New York law bars a second prosecution for the same act. Judge Gregory Carro will have both sides' papers by Oct. 30. Until he rules, there is no state trial date.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office filed papers Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, opposing Luigi Mangione's motion to dismiss his New York state murder case, ABC News and The Guardian reported. In the state case, Mangione is charged with second-degree murder, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, and other counts in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson outside a Midtown hotel. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges. ABC News reported prosecutors argued that a state trial would hold him accountable for a different kind of "harm or evil" than his federal guilty plea. A filing is an argument. It is not a ruling.

On Aug. 14, Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court to two stalking counts tied to Thompson's killing, telling the court, "On the morning of December 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died," ABC News reported. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett accepted the plea. His lawyers then asked state Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss the state indictment under New York's statutory double-jeopardy law, which says a person may not be separately prosecuted for two offenses based on the same act or criminal transaction, The Guardian reported. Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo told reporters in August that New York law does not permit a person to be prosecuted and punished twice for the exact same crime, ABC News reported.

Prosecutors argued the murder case can proceed under an exception to that law because the elements of federal stalking and state murder do not overlap in the way that would trigger the protection, The Guardian reported. On the weapons counts, they noted that the federal court dismissed the federal weapons charges and argued that "dismissed federal charges do not constitute a separate prosecution." The Guardian reported Carro set Oct. 9 for the prosecution's response and Oct. 30 for the defense reply, and that the next state court date is Dec. 10. ABC News reported a ruling on the state trial is expected in December, the same month Mangione is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court, where he faces a maximum of life in prison. The state trial, once set for Sept. 8, remains postponed.

The filing came a week after police body camera footage of Mangione's Dec. 9, 2024, arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, was made public on Friday, Oct. 2, after news outlets petitioned Carro to unseal it, CNN and ABC News reported. CNN reported the videos come from eight officers' cameras. They show him handing officers a fake ID in the name "Mark Rosario" inside a McDonald's before giving his real name, officers finding a gun magazine wrapped in underwear in his backpack, and, at the station, an officer finding a gun CNN described as now known to be the murder weapon, along with a notebook prosecutors have called his "manifesto." After a suppression hearing last December, Carro ruled that most of that evidence could be used at a state trial. Whether there will be one is the question now in front of him. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.