How does the Federal government have jurisdiction to charge Luigi Mangione?

Question

It's my understanding that the Federal government can only file murder charges on a small subset of murders, like murders of Federal agents or on Federal property. With that in mind, how can the Federal government charge Luigi Mangione with murder? Brian Thompson was not a Federal agent and was not murdered on Federal property.

Answer 1

This is a good question. A crime being committed within the U.S. does not necessarily give the federal government jurisdiction to prosecute. Most crimes are only state crimes.

But in this case, there is an interstate element (which is one path to federal jurisdiction).

The Department of Justice explains:

Mangione is charged with one count of using a firearm to commit murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death or life in prison; one count of interstate stalking resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; one count of stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; and one count of discharging a firearm that was equipped with a silencer in furtherance of a crime of violence, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a mandatory minimum penalty of 30 years.

These are all specific federal statutory offences.

The complaint makes clear that the federal jurisdiction comes from the counts of interstate stalking (he "travelled from Georgia to New York" for the purpose of stalking and killing) and use of interstate facilities ("interstate wires, interstate highways, and the Internet") in stalking (Counts One and Two). The murder charge (Count Three) and firearms charge (Count Four) are two specific federal statutory offences, defined as being related to and in furtherance of other crimes of violence for which he may be prosecuted in a federal court, namely Counts One and Two.

Answer 2

The federal government can charge murder in several scenarios beyond just murders of federal agents or on federal property.

• When the murder occurs during the commission of another federal crime
• When the murder is connected to organized crime/racketeering (under RICO statutes)
• When the murder involves crossing state lines
• When the murder is part of a drug trafficking operation
• When the murder is related to witness tampering in a federal case

These are not the only scenarios. There a hundreds of different scenarios that give the Federal government jurisdiction to prosecute murder.

Although we oftentimes see it prosecuted on the state level, almost every murder charge can also be prosecuted on the Federal level.

If you are convicted on the state level, you can also be tried in federal court for the same crime. Don't get too involved in the exceptions. Pretty much all murders are federal crimes.