It’s not merely who he killed, but why. Several of the Jan 6 Insurrectionists got terrorism sentencing enhancements. Note that at the federal level, the anpproach is generally terrorism sentencing enhancements on other existing criminal offences rather than defining many offences as acts of terrorism in and of themselves. There are some - terrorism financing, material support, etc, but by and large they simple charge and prosecute the base offence (eg murder), and then terrorism comes in at sentencing if the prosecution builds a case supporting it. Mangione caught the direct terrorism murder charge at state level, not federal. I looked up how NYS defines its varieties of murder including the terrorism one and the fact set fits at first glance. By the same fact sets the feds might look at terrorism sentencing once they get there.
If what we know so far holds up - the evidence he was caught with - they have him absolutely dead to rights. Federally I bet they offer him a deal to stay off death row. Although then again the incoming AG might tell them no, go the whole way.
IMO, prosecuting this as a straightforward murder will be shit simple and would suffice. Send him to jail for life on that. However, the facts probably do fit for the legal definition of terrorism- looks like he committed his political motivations to writing and was found with that on his person. A fact set that clean makes it hard not to.
A lot will depend on what he envisions his day(s) in court looking like a couple years from now. He probably wants to make a spectacle. Either way he’s in jail for probably life; if he wants to continue to pursue his ideological objectives, the last tool in his tooolbox is martyrdom. And he’ll have a lot of sympathy and support in that.
