Last week, as we covered here, the Biden Justice Department filed a death-penalty charge against Luigi Mangione, the alleged cold-blooded killer of health insurance executive Brian Thompson. Mangione was already facing state murder charges for the murder committed on a Manhattan street. The only reason to pile on a capital charge — for an administration that both says it philosophically opposes the death penalty and has imposed a moratorium on executions since President Biden entered office in January 2021 — was to grab headlines in a case that had riveted public attention.
