Judge Allows Gun and Notebook at Mangione Trial, While Suppressing Evidence From McDonald’s Search

NEW YORK CITY — After months of arguments over what happened inside an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s and later at a police station, Justice Gregory Carro delivered a split ruling Monday that will shape the evidence jurors are permitted to hear in Luigi Mangione’s state murder trial.

The most consequential pieces of physical evidence survived.

Prosecutors will be permitted to introduce the 3D-printed handgun they allege was used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, along with a silencer, Mangione’s red notebook and handwritten papers recovered from his backpack after police brought him to the Altoona station.

But Carro found that officers crossed a constitutional line earlier, while still inside the McDonald’s. Evidence discovered during that initial warrantless search — including a loaded magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip — will not be admitted at trial.  

Mangione, 28, was in court as Carro summarized the decision. He wore a dark suit and sat at the defense table with two court officers positioned behind him. A small group of supporters watched from the back rows, some wearing shirts reading “Free Luigi.” Mangione did not speak as the ruling was delivered.

The ruling followed an extensive suppression hearing Carro conducted in December, when the court heard testimony from 17 witnesses and reviewed body-worn camera footage documenting Mangione’s Dec. 9, 2024 encounter with Altoona police. Mangione’s attorneys had asked the judge to suppress both physical evidence and statements to law enforcement.

At the center of the dispute was Mangione’s backpack.

When Altoona officers first approached him, the bag was on the floor near his feet as he sat at a rear table in the McDonald’s. As additional officers arrived, police moved the backpack first out of his reach and later to another table roughly nine feet away.  

That distance proved critical to Carro’s analysis.

“The backpack was not within the immediate control of defendant, or grabbable area,” Carro wrote.

Police nevertheless began opening the backpack after Mangione was placed under arrest.

Officer Christy Wasser unzipped its main compartment, removing a sandwich and loaf of bread. Officers continued through the bag, taking out a red journal, a Faraday bag containing a cellphone, passport and wallet, and a cardboard sleeve containing a computer data chip.

The search continued until Wasser unrolled a pair of underwear and found a loaded handgun magazine.

At that point, officers stopped.

Body-camera evidence documented disagreement among them about how to proceed. One officer said they would “probably” need a search warrant. Others believed the bag could be searched incident to Mangione’s arrest. Wasser explained that she had been checking to “make sure there’s no bombs.” The backpack was then closed up and transported to the station.

Carro concluded that what happened inside the restaurant did not qualify as a lawful search incident to arrest. Police had already removed the backpack from Mangione’s reach, eliminating the immediate concern that he could grab something inside or destroy evidence.

“The search of the backpack at the McDonald’s was an improper warrantless search,” Carro ruled.

That meant the items discovered through that search had to go.

“Therefore, the evidence found during the search of the backpack at the McDonald’s must be suppressed, including the magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip,” Carro wrote.

But the ruling changed once Carro followed the backpack from the restaurant to Altoona police headquarters.

There, officers conducted what the prosecution characterized as an inventory search — the routine process of cataloguing the property of someone being taken into custody.

The Altoona Police Department had written procedures requiring officers to inventory a detainee’s property. Those procedures called for bags and clothing to be searched, personal property to be documented and stored, and weapons, contraband or evidence to be separately recorded.  

At the station, Wasser opened a compartment she had not searched at the McDonald’s and found a handgun. The weapon was loaded. The continued search also produced a silencer and other items, while officers examined and documented the red notebook and loose papers.  

Carro found that search constitutionally valid.

“The People have established that the subsequent search of the backpack at the station was a valid inventory search,” he ruled.

In his written decision, Carro emphasized that an inventory search cannot simply serve as a pretext for police to rummage for incriminating evidence. Its legitimate purposes include protecting an arrestee’s property, protecting police from accusations that property was lost or stolen, and protecting officers and others from dangerous objects.

Here, he found, Altoona had an established inventory procedure and officers conducted the stationhouse search consistently enough with those rules to satisfy constitutional requirements.

The distinction produced an unusual dividing line through the contents of a single backpack.

The loaded magazine found at the McDonald’s is suppressed. The gun subsequently discovered at the station is not.

The cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip found during the restaurant search are suppressed. But the notebook remains admissible because, although officers removed it from the backpack at McDonald’s, they did not open it or read its contents there.

That leaves prosecutors able to present some of the evidence they have identified as central to their case, including the alleged weapon and Mangione’s writings. The stationhouse inventory also produced handwritten slips that prosecutors characterize as containing escape routes or plans.

Carro’s decision also addressed what Mangione said during his encounter with police.

The judge suppressed some statements made after the encounter had developed into a custodial detention but before Mangione had been properly advised of his rights. Among the excluded statements was his response to police questioning about why he had initially supplied a false name. Other remarks were admissible where Carro determined they had been spontaneous rather than elicited through interrogation.

Statements Mangione later made to two Pennsylvania corrections officers also survived the defense challenge, including a conversation touching on healthcare, overseas travel and literature.

The result was neither the wholesale suppression sought by the defense nor the complete admission sought by prosecutors.

Carro found the first backpack search unlawful and excluded evidence directly obtained from it. But once the bag arrived at the station, he found police were entitled to conduct a standardized inventory — preserving for trial the alleged gun, silencer, notebook and additional writings.

With the suppression litigation decided, the state prosecution moved another step closer to a jury.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty. His New York state trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8, 2026.