Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro said in a court hearing on Wednesday that Luigi Mangione will argue a “psychiatric defense” for his upcoming state trial over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The man who is painted by many on the Left as an antihero will now seek to present evidence that he experienced “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of Thompson’s killing, Fox News reported.
Mangione’s psychiatric defense could downgrade a murder conviction to a manslaughter conviction if the jury buys his argument. Mangione’s exact psychiatric issues are not clear, but the defense will have to inform the prosecutors of what malady the defendant suffers from and what caused his “extreme emotional disturbance” ahead of the state trial, which is set to begin on September 8.
On December 4, 2024, Mangione allegedly gunned down Thompson outside of the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Evidence of premeditation was found in a notebook he had on him during the arrest, detailing how to carry out the murder and why. He also carried a manifesto against insurance companies, specifically mentioning “United.”
The judge ordered the defense to give further details to the DA’s office by Thursday.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, pointed out on Fox News that Mangione said himself in 2025 that “he doesn’t have mental illness, that he doesn’t suffer from drug abuse of any kind. … They’re gonna hang this on the fact that he had spinal fusion surgery in 2023, and he had been suffering in pain, and isolation, and anxiety.”
Siegel doesn’t believe any of Mangione’s claims would “meet the bar of extreme emotional disturbance if it hadn’t been diagnosed previously, where he had some kind of delusional or psychotic disorder as a result.”
Legal analyst Kerri Urbahn sees the defense linking the “emotional disturbance” to Mangione’s spinal fusion surgery back in 2023, arguing that excessive angst and anger built up over time, and then he eventually “exploded — reacted and gunned down the CEO.”
Mangione has already received a favorable ruling in his federal case, when a judge dismissed charges in the case that made him eligible for the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to all state and federal charges.
.png)
.png)
