Judge allows gun and notebook in Luigi Mangione murder trial

Judge Gregory Carro ruled that prosecutors may use a gun and a notebook in Luigi Mangione’s state murder trial, a decision that gives the prosecution its clearest path yet to tying him directly to the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson.

The ruling came after a three-week suppression hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court that featured testimony from nearly 20 law-enforcement witnesses and drew packed public attention. Carro had already said he would issue the decision on May 18, and his order is a major win for prosecutors because it preserves the most damaging physical evidence in the case ahead of Mangione’s Sept. 8, 2026 trial.

The notebook matters because prosecutors say it contains writings that amount to a confession or reveal motive, including references to an escape route. The gun matters because it is the alleged murder weapon, the kind of physical evidence jurors can understand quickly and connect to the shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Dec. 4, 2024. Even if jurors hear only part of the backpack evidence, the state case remains focused on whether Mangione carried out a premeditated, targeted attack.

Mangione’s lawyers had argued that police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, searched his backpack without a warrant after arresting him at a McDonald’s five days after the shooting, and that officers failed to read him his Miranda rights. Those arguments appear to have lost the immediate battle over suppression, but they remain central to the defense’s broader effort to challenge how investigators handled the arrest and search. The ruling leaves Mangione with less room to keep the jury from seeing the most incriminating items, while preserving the core constitutional claims for appeal.

Some other items from the backpack were suppressed, including material court reporting identified as a fake driver’s license and cash. That partial win for the defense still limits the state’s evidence, but it does not blunt the central point prosecutors wanted to make: that the bag contained the gun and writings they say connect Mangione to Thompson’s death.

The same backpack evidence was allowed in Mangione’s federal case in January, when U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett found the items would have been inevitably discovered. Mangione has pleaded not guilty in both cases. His federal trial is scheduled for January 2027, but the state case now moves toward trial with the prosecution’s strongest physical evidence intact and its narrative sharpened for jurors.