Jury selection in Luigi Mangione’s federal trial is set to start on September 8, Judge Margaret Garnett said on Friday.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 18: Luigi Mangione (R) speaks to his attorney, Jacob Kaplan, during a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. Mangione's lawyers will argue to have the evidence thrown out because police officers allegedly did not read Mangione his Miranda rights and did not have a proper warrant when they searched his backpack at a Pennsylvania McDonald's last December. He is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and faces state and federal murder charges. (Photo by Luiz C. Ribeiro-Pool/Getty Images)

The judge reportedly said the trial will begin on October 13 if the death penalty is excluded -- or Jan. 11, 2027, if the case proceeds as a capital matter.

Mangione, who is 27 years old, was accused of stalking and murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York on Dec. 4, 2024. Authorities tracked him down a few days after the deadly shooting at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania.

Mangione’s lawyers want Garnett to bar prosecutors from using certain items found in Mangione's backpack, including a gun police said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which Mangione purportedly described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 09: Supporters of Luigi Mangione wait in line to enter Manhattan Federal Court on January 09, 2026 in New York City. Lawyers for Mangione attorneys are in court for the 27-year-old accused killer to try to avoid the death penalty in the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare’s top executive in 2024. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The attorneys said the search of the suspect killer's backpack was illegal because police had not yet obtained a warrant.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges, which carry the possibility of life in prison.

Earlier this year, Mangione's lawyers accused the Trump administration of using their client as "a pawn to further its political agenda."

In a court filing previously obtained by The National News Desk, the attorneys urged Garnett to dismiss federal charges be dismissed and asked if the death penalty could be taken off the table as a result of public comments by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Defense lawyers previously argued that DOJ officials poisoned the case when Bondi declared prior to his April indictment that capital punishment is warranted for a "premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

Mr. Mangione is one young man, alleged to have acted alone, fighting for his life in three separate cases, against the full force and might of the entirety of the United States Government that is actively and persistently using his him as a pawn to further its political agenda," his lawyers said in the filing.

This is the very definition of prejudicial where the consequence is death. For these reasons, as well as the reasons articulated in Mr. Mangione’s September 19, 2025, motion, this Court should dismiss the indictment or, in the alternative, dismiss the Notice of Intent seeking the death penalty," according to his attorneys.

____________

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.