Mangione's lawyers seek to exclude gun magazine, notebook as evidence in Thompson murder case

In a Manhattan courtroom, the legal fate of Luigi Mangione — charged with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — now turns not on what was found, but on how it was found. A warrantless search of a backpack inside a Pennsylvania McDonald's has become the constitutional fulcrum upon which an entire prosecution may pivot. The question before the court is ancient and essential: does the state's certainty that it has found its man justify the means by which it found him?