Luigi Mangione's legal team reversed course Thursday, abandoning the extreme emotional disturbance defense they had announced Wednesday in his state murder trial.
10:34 PM
Luigi Mangione's legal team withdrew a psychiatric defense Thursday, one day after telling a judge they would pursue it in his state murder trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione's attorneys notified Judge Gregory Carro on Thursday that they would no longer assert a defense based on extreme emotional disturbance. The reversal came just 24 hours after the same legal team told the judge Wednesday that they planned to argue the 28-year-old was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of Thompson's killing on December 4, 2024.
A spokeswoman for Mangione's legal team declined to provide context on the one-sentence letter sent to the court Thursday night. The Manhattan district attorney's office, which is prosecuting the state case, also declined to comment.
Thursday was the deadline for Mangione's legal team to provide prosecutors with information to support the emotional disturbance claim. Judge Carro said Thursday that court documents regarding the attorneys' planned psychiatric defense would be sealed.
Under New York law, an extreme emotional disturbance defense would reduce a murder charge to manslaughter, potentially resulting in a shorter prison sentence. Legal expert Richard Schoenstein explained that asserting such a defense would effectively amount to admitting to killing Thompson with mitigating circumstances, which differs from an insanity defense that typically seeks total absolution.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate, is being held in federal jail in Brooklyn while awaiting both state and federal trials. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases. His state trial is scheduled to begin September 8, with jury selection to follow. His next court date is August 11.
Legal experts had been divided on the viability of the psychiatric defense strategy. Heather Cucolo, a criminal law professor at New York Law School, said a jury would have difficulty accepting such a defense given evidence that Mangione meticulously planned the killing, including by lying in wait outside Thompson's hotel in Midtown before the broad daylight shooting. Other legal observers had characterized the psychiatric approach as potentially effective given the substantial physical evidence tying Mangione to the crime.
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