Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court to stalking Brian Thompson, admitting he tracked him to a Manhattan hotel and shot him there in 2024. Federal prosecutors are asking for a life sentence when he is sentenced in December. Now the same conduct is being prosecuted a second time, in a separate New York state murder case built on the identical stalking and killing already covered by that federal plea.

New York has some of the strongest double jeopardy protections in the country. State law says a second prosecution can be barred when a federal case covering the same conduct already ended in a guilty plea. Mangione's own lawyers make exactly that argument, writing in their court filing that the stalking conduct is, in their words, "coterminous with the conduct committed as part of the murder offense," according to the Associated Press. They have described Mangione as a "pawn in parallel prosecutions," according to the AP.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office disagrees, and says it intends to keep pursuing Mangione in state court, arguing the murder and firearms charges rest on different legal elements. Judge Gregory Carro will decide whether New York's double jeopardy law applies here, with a hearing set for Dec. 10, about a week before Mangione's federal sentencing.

Whatever anyone believes about Mangione himself, double jeopardy protections exist so no one is tried twice for the same conduct just because one prosecutor wants a different outcome than another already reached. If Manhattan can set that rule aside in this case, it can set it aside in any case.

Sign the petition to urge Judge Carro to uphold New York's double jeopardy protections and Alvin Bragg's office to drop the duplicate state prosecution.