A New York judge said Wednesday that Luigi Mangione will assert a psychiatric defense in his trial in the 2024 killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione’s lawyers are going to argue he was suffering from “extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the occurrence,” New York state Judge Gregory Carro informed the court on Wednesday. If they succeed, Mangione could bypass prison and be sent to a psychiatric treatment facility instead.
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Carro said he would unseal a notice from September related to Mangione’s affirmative psychiatric defense and emotional disturbance at the time of Thompson’s killing, though he said the defendant’s team must submit additional documentation regarding that defense by Thursday.
Legal experts say the barrier to establishing an extreme emotional disturbance in a defendant is difficult under New York law, as defendants must pass three tests to gain approval from a state court.
The first, considered the most difficult, is that an emotional disturbance must be so extreme as to “result in a profound loss of self-control,” according to Andrea Burkhart, a criminal defense lawyer in Washington state.
Two other tests include measuring whether there was an objectively reasonable explanation for an emotional disturbance, and if the homicide was committed under the influence of the disturbance.
“In my view, the first element will be the hardest to reconcile with the known evidence of planning and the seeming cool and collected carrying out of the act,” Burkhart posted to X. “In the other hand, it may be relatable to potential jurors who themselves have strong feelings about the healthcare system.”
If Mangione is successful during his state trial on Sept. 8 in proving he was disturbed at the time of the murder, it could legally enable the judge to divert the accused killer to a state psychiatric treatment facility as opposed to a maximum-security prison.
Following Mangione’s arrest in December 2024, the media and legal experts attempted to piece together possible motivations for his alleged killing of Thompson, citing his manifesto, which included details about his back injury that may have fueled resentment against the healthcare industry.
However, Mangione was not insured by UnitedHealthcare from 2014 to 2024, prosecutors said at the time of his arrest. His alleged handwritten notebook expressed “hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular,” according to his separate federal complaint.
Mangione, 28, faces both state and federal charges in New York, as well as state charges in Pennsylvania in connection to the case. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
If convicted in New York, he faces the possibility of life in prison. There is no possibility of the death penalty in the Empire State case because New York has abolished it.
Earlier this year, a federal judge dismissed two of his four federal counts, including murder through the use of a firearm, which carried a potential death sentence, effectively blocking federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
LUIGI MANGIONE RAKES IN $1.5 MILLION IN DONATIONS FOR LEGAL FUNDS
Federal prosecutors indicated in February that they would not seek higher court review of U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett’s decision to dismiss two of four charges in that case.
Unlike in his state court case, Mangione has no way of asserting a similar emotional disturbance defense in federal court, which lacks the same provisions that the New York justice system offers.
