Last week, accused killer Luigi Mangione and his defense team appeared in New York court to fight for the suppression of key physical evidence in the case against him – all of it obtained without a warrant. During multiday hearings, officers from the Altoona Police Department testified about their encounter with Mangione at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s five days after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk.
At Mangione’s upcoming trial, prosecutors seek to present evidence of a 9mm handgun and journal recovered by these officers from Mangione’s backpack. If the trial judge deems this evidence admissible, the State will almost certainly argue that the handgun matches the casings found at the location where Thompson was killed, and that Mangione’s personal writings decrying the health insurance industry constitute motive.
The potential downfall of this plan? Altoona officers flagrantly cut corners with their search of Mangione’s backpack, unzipping his private property and rifling around inside of it without probable cause to do so.
Altoona officers flagrantly cut corners with their search of Mangione’s backpack, unzipping his private property and rifling around inside of it without probable cause to do so.
Under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, all people in the United States are entitled to be free from unlawful searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has long held that evidence resulting from an unlawful search and seizure is considered “fruit of the poisonous tree” and must be barred from use by the prosecution at trial. Although obtaining a warrant from a judge is the “gold standard” for constitutionally valid searches, there are some lawful exceptions to the warrant requirement.
One such exception exists if an officer reasonably believes a search of a closed container is required for their own safety and the safety of others. Police may also search the personal property of a defendant “incident to arrest,” ostensibly to inventory the items found.
The gun and journal at issue in the Mangione case are the fruit of a reckless violation of civil liberties now subject to flimsy and retroactive rationalization. Absent the shield of a warrant, New York prosecutors are clinging onto the aforementioned public safety and incident to arrest exceptions like life rafts, despite the enormous logical fallacies bursting holes on all sides of their arguments.
At 9:48 a.m. on the date of the McDonald’s encounter, Mangione was informed by officers that he was “not in custody” (i.e. under arrest). Yet 10 minutes later at 9:58 a.m., with no intervening transport of Mangione or other indicia of formal arrest, two officers searched inside Mangione’s backpack, including its compartments.
The prosecution’s written brief submits that Mangione’s arrest was “near-contemporaneous” to this search, a choice of language that “couches” the timing of events in legalese and all but confirms that this was not a search incident to (i.e. after or substantially at the same time as) Mangione’s arrest.
Notably, the backpack had been placed out of Mangione’s reach at the very beginning of the encounter, eight patrol officers were present at the scene and Mangione was in handcuffs. Under these circumstances, a public safety exception for such an invasive search of Mangione’s backpack is equally dubious. The prosecution’s brief laughably suggests that Mangione could have lunged toward the bag and that handcuffs are not a “fail-safe,” demonstrating the extent to which New York prosecutors are grasping at straws to justify this search.
The crown jewel of the State’s public safety argument is one officer’s claim that she was searching the bag for a bomb before transporting it back to the precinct. This comment was made after the first (of several) backpack search and recovery of a gun magazine. Mangione and his team credibly argue that the officer came up with the bomb excuse to cover her tracks, citing the fact that she did not call for a bomb squad, evacuate the McDonald’s or complete her search of the bag before putting it in her car as evidence of its falsity. Mangione and his team credibly argue that the officer came up with the bomb excuse to cover her tracks. However, even if the officer had been concerned about a bomb, that was an unreasonable concern; Mangione was suspected of a shooting, not a bombing. Law enforcement does not get to point at a person, decide they are dangerous and search their property based on overbroad fears completely incongruous with suspected conduct. Such a precedent would not only overhaul the constitutional protections each and every one of us are entitled to, but it would also all but endorse bias in low-income, overpoliced communities of color. Mangione’s suppression issue has one fatal flaw: a legal principle known as the “inevitable discovery doctrine,” which allows judges to forgive unconstitutional searches if that evidence would have been lawfully discovered anyway. Mangione’s defense team will struggle to argue that his arrest for providing a false ID to the police would not have led to the inevitable search of his backpack incident to arrest. However, should the judge rule for the defense, the effect would be far more expansive than merely decimating the State’s case against Mangione. A ruling to suppress the Mangione evidence would send a powerful message to law enforcement everywhere that the weight of any given evidence does not overshadow the means through which it was obtained. There is no asterisk in the Constitution delineating rights based on guilt or innocence.
Madeleine Lippey
Madeleine Lippey is a public defender, trial attorney and writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Stanford and Georgetown Law and a passionate advocate for reproductive, economic, racial and criminal justice. All opinions set forth in her articles are made in her individual capacity, not as an employee of any public defender office or agency. 
