Ms. Bondi said her decision came after “careful consideration” and was in line with President Trump’s executive order directing the Justice Department to renew use of the death penalty requests after President Biden declared a moratorium on capital punishment for most federal offenders in 2021. “Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, coldblooded assassination that shocked America,” Ms. Bondi said in a statement.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4. Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing, which rattled the business community while also galvanizing health insurance critics. The federal charges include murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first. It wasn’t immediately clear if Bondi’s death penalty announcement will change the order of how the cases are tried.

The 26-year-old alleged assassin is charged by prosecutors in both Manhattan federal and state court with the brazen killing. The state case is currently farther along, with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office having secured an indictment from a grand jury. But New York State prosecutors have not been able to seek capital punishment since the practice was outlawed in 2004. It was not immediately clear Tuesday how or if Bondi’s decision would impact whether Mangione will go on trial in federal or state court first. A federal jury would be required to sign off on the government’s push for the death penalty in order for Mangione to be executed.