GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULDN'T SENTENCE LUIGI MANGIONE TO DEATH, NEITHER SHOULD DONALD TRUMP
OPINION
OPINION
Dec. 19, 2024
In addition to murder and other criminal charges in state courts in Pennsylvania and New York, Luigi Mangione is now facing federal charges that could carry the death penalty. George Washington wouldn't sentence the 26-year-old to death, and neither should Pres. Donald Trump.
Mangione faces a possible sentence of life without parole for shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to death in New York City on Dec. 4. New York's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional under the state constitution in 2004.
The decision whether to seek the federal death penalty against Mangione will fall to president-elect Donald Trump and his Attorney General once they are sworn into office. Trump has called Mangione's alleged killing of Thompson "cold-blooded. Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing. And how people can like this guy is—that’s a sickness, actually."
When Trump was president from 2017 to 2021, he executed more prisoners than any other U.S. president since the 19th century. Until Trump took office, only three federal prisoners had been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Trump executed 13 federal prisoners.
Trump has supported the death penalty since at least 1989, when he took out full-page ads in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News and Newsday supporting the execution of the five men arrested for allegedly raping the Central Park jogger—all of whom were innocent and subsequently exonerated.
Under Pres. Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions in 2021.
"The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely," Garland said at the time. "That obligation has special force in capital cases."
It seems likely, if not certain, Pres. Trump will lift the current death penalty moratorium and begin executing federal prisoners again. There are presently 40 federal prisoners on death row awaiting execution.
One of the things that makes the death penalty unfair is its random and arbitrary application. It is not consistently applied.
Mangione's case is a perfect example. Had Donald Trump not been re-elected, Mangione would not have faced the federal death penalty because of the moratorium. But, solely because Trump was re-elected, now Mangione likely will face the death penalty.
Today we take them for granted, but political parties are not in the Constitution. In his Farewell Address, Founder and outgoing first president George Washington warned Americans in no uncertain terms against the evil of political parties. He was particularly worried about two parties establishing a duopoly.
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension," Washington observed, "is in itself a frightful despotism."
Even without a two-party duopoly, Pres. Washington warned, political parties "distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration," they agitate "the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms," they kindle "animosity of one part against another" and they even foment "riot and insurrection."
Pres. Washington's last foresight was confirmed by the attack by Republicans on the Nation's Capital on Jan. 6, 2021.
In spite of Washington's dire warning, America has been dominated by not just political parties but a strict two-party choke-hold almost since Washington spoke it in 1796.
Pres. Trump, the victim of two assassination attempts, is not likely to incline toward compassion for Mangione. But he should embody his office and be bigger than himself. He should remember the American people showed him compassion and elected him again—notwithstanding what members of his party did on Jan. 6, 2021 and his felony conviction, however fugazi, in New York.
Just as Pres. Trump will show the J6 rioters mercy by pardoning them once he takes office, he should spare Mangione the death penalty to set a bipartisan example and cool the searing partisan passions poisioning public discourse.
Besides, life in prison is not better. It's worse.