Luigi Mangione's lawyers: Bondi's actions should prevent DOJ from seeking death penalty

The AG's own words are being used against her. Also: More law firms capitulate to Trump's authoritarian shakedowns. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione argued on April 11 that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s actions in announcing and promoting the death penalty for Mangione have prejudiced the jury pool, are arbitrary and capricious, and should lead the federal court in New York to step in and bar the Justice Department from seeking the death penalty in his case.

“The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt,“ the lawyers wrote in their motion to preclude the government from seeking the death penalty in his case, arguing that Bondi’s actions mean that “Mr. Mangione’s Due Process rights have already been violated and the manner in which the Government has acted has prejudiced the grand jury pool and has corrupted the grand jury process.”

Additionally, the lawyers argued that the court should not presume good faith by Bondi in her actions, citing the handling by the Justice Department and executive branch in the Eric Adams case, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, and the retaliation against law firms.

“With a few exceptions, for over two hundred years the Executive Branch earned the presumption of good faith,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote. “Over the last two months, it lost it.“

As to Mangione’s case specifically, his lawyers pointed to Bondi’s press statement announcing that she had “directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty” in Mangione’s case, her Instagram post, and an appearance on Fox News Sunday on April 6. Additionally, they detail how the case is being aggressively pursued on a political front and, relatedly, how normal capital case process has been abandoned here.

This was the full message received by journalists on the press list:

As Mangione’s lawyers noted regarding her statement about the killing of Brian Thompson, “She never once discussed the presumption of innocence or that Mr. Mangione is innocent until proven guilty.“ That continued into the Instagram post and the Fox News appearance, they added.

The lawyers distinguished their current request from a similar one made, unsuccessfully, by Sayfullo Saipov, the man since convicted of the 2017 terrorism Halloween Day truck attack in Manhattan that led to the deaths of eight people. There, Trump, in his first term, tweeted that Saipov should get the death penalty. Saipov later challenged the Justice Department’s decision to seek the death penalty in his case, unsuccessfully. He was convicted of the murder of all eight people, but the jury did not unanimously agree that the sentence should be death and, accordingly, received eight life sentences as a result, plus additional time on other charges.

In Saipov’s case, the court found that “the president’s tweets did not impact the judgement of Attorney General [Jeff¹] Sessions.” With Mangione, however, the lawyers noted, “it is the Attorney General herself“ who took the actions.

Mangione’s lawyers argued:

Here, the one and only person legally permitted to make this decision is the same person who breached the established protocol, making a decision that is blatantly arbitrary and political and then publicizing that decision in a manner to prejudice the grand jury hearing this case.

Additionally, Mangione’s lawyers noted that, as to Saipov’s case, “between the time of the president’s tweets and the defendant’s motion, Saipov’s counsel was afforded the death penalty protocol assured to death-eligible defendants.” That did not happen here.

Finally, in Saipov’s case, “the court observed that the defense failed to show that the Attorney General’s decision was influenced by politics,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote. Here, it’s the opposite. Bondi, his lawyers argued, “has stated explicitly that her decision to order the death penalty was to ‘carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.’“

In discussing the broader context, and the lack of process involved, the lawyers did not hold back:

This is an uphill request, still, but it is notable how much disregard for the rule of law — and the role of the U.S. Attorney General and the Justice Department — Bondi has shown in her pursuit of the death penalty in Mangione’s case.

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More capitulators

On Friday, multiple law firms threw their hat — and their employees — into the capitulation wing of how law firms are responding to the Trump administration’s attack on the rule of law.

In a social media post, President Donald Trump announced that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP (Cadwalader) had reached an agreement to provide $100 million in “pro bono Legal Services … to causes that President Trump and Cadwalader both support,” similar to those reached with Trump by Paul Weiss (which was for $40 million in pro bono work), Skadden Arps, Milbank, and Willkie Farr.

President Donald Trump also announced that Allen Overy Shearman Sterling US LLP (A&O Shearman), Kirkland & Ellis LLP (Kirkland), Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham), and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (Simpson) had all reached an “agreement“ with Trump similar to the prior capitulating firms — with the alteration that these firms, aside from Cadwalader, agreed to provide $125 million “in pro bono and other free Legal services“ each.

Apparently, $25 million is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission add-on cost. The acting chair of the EEOC, Andrea Lucas, asked 20 law firms for detailed information about their diversity-supporting efforts — despite lacking a quorum and her letter having other procedural problems. Trump said that this “arrangement” purports to end that letter campaign — and any potential claims that might have come from it.

(Whatever that means.)

The EEOC-inclusive deals feel somehow even less defensible to me than the others — particularly with the $25 million add-on and Trump’s clear effort to corral them together. Additionally, the language for the legal services is slightly, but significantly, different. They agreed to provide “pro bono and other free Legal services,“ whereas, for example, Cadwalader agreed to provide “pro bono Legal Services.”

As Walter Olson — of the Cato Institute — put it, “EEOC agrees to drop pending enforcement letters against law firms that pledged major dollars to Trump ‘pro bono’ fund. We now live in a country where making a payment to the ruler’s slush fund lets you buy your way out of regulatory difficulty.“

The letters sent within the firms were as disingenuous and weak as the others.

“We made the decision to pursue this solution because at our very core our mission is to protect and support our people and our clients, and this agreement does both,” Kirkland’s “Firm Committee” wrote.

Latham’s Richard Trobman wrote that the decision was “made with great care,” adding, “I know that some of you may not agree with this outcome, and I respect those views. But I am confident that the strength of our culture will help us move forward together. Thank you for your dedication to one another and your commitment to our clients.“

Alden Millard at Simpson, though, took the cake.

“We know and understand that this development may weigh heavily on some of you,” he wrote — apparently excluding himself — and adding tnat “we appreciate how unprecedented and challenging recent events in the legal industry have been.“

Despite that tacit acknowledge that this is — at best — a decision that is fundamentally upsetting to “some” in the firm, he concluded it similar to how Skadden’s Jeremy London had done, writing, “This decision does not change who we are as a Firm. As we move forward, we are grateful for your unwavering dedication to the Firm, our clients and each other.”

To one associate, that was that.

“Simpson Thacher's decision today fundamentally changes ‘who we are as a Firm,’” Siunik Moradian, who had been an associate in the firm’s Los Angeles office, wrote. “I make a different choice. I will not sleepwalk toward authoritariansm, and I will not be deterred from exercising my First Amendment rights for so long as I may have them. I am not ‘unwaveringly dedicated to the Firm.’ I am unwaveringly dedicated to upholding the integrity of legal principles that are predicates to the legitimacy of our practice.“

It isn’t only just solo lawyers — although there are maddeningly few like Moradian.

The law firms fighting back — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale — were joined by Susman Godfrey, which was targeted by a retaliatory Trump executive order on April 9. The firm, represented by Munger Tolles & Olson, sued on April 11.

Donald Verrilli, the solicitor general in the Obama administration, signed the complaint.

“In America we have, in the words of John Adams, a government of laws and not men,” it began. “President Trump’s campaign of Executive Orders against law firms and others, including the Executive Order he signed on April 9, 2025 against Susman Godfrey, is a grave threat to this foundational premise of our Republic.”

It is a damning indictment of the legal profession that such a statement does not meet with unanimity from all corners of the legal profession, and that some — too many — BigLaw firms have decided that their bottom line and their relationship with an authoritarian is more important to them than the rule of law.

Do they care? It would appear not.

Soon after the capitulation message went out at Kirkland, the usual weekly announcement email went out.

It began: “To say the least, it’s been quite a long week, so it’s good to turn the focus back to the Firm’s business and our people’s successes.“

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Closing my tabs

This Sunday, these are the tabs I am closing: