Criminal Justice
Luigi Mangione will use ‘mental defect’ defense to explain alleged shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO
Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in December 2024, is planning to use a mental defect defense in his murder trial in New York. (Photo by Steven Hirsch/The New York Post via the Associated Press)
Luigi Mangione will argue that he was suffering a “mental defect” at the time that he allegedly murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in late 2024, a New York state judge has revealed.
New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro said he would be unsealing all records related to Mangione’s defense that he had an “extreme emotional disturbance at the time” that he allegedly fatally shot Thompson outside his New York City hotel, Law360 and Courthouse News Service report.
Carro previously shut out the public and the press from an earlier hearing without explanation, he said, to avoid prejudice to Mangione if he decided not to use it, Law360 reported. Under the law, Mangione’s defense effectively argues that a defendant is not criminally responsible for his actions “by reason of mental disease or defect.”
Carro issued a warning to Mangione’s attorneys that the state is entitled to know what the “malady is that this defendant suffers” and how it caused the “extreme emotional disturbance” linked to the alleged crime.
Mangione is accused of shooting Thompson with a silenced handgun outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024. He was arrrested after a manhunt that ended days later in Pennsylvania.
See also:
Federal prosecutors in Luigi Mangione case won’t appeal ruling barring death penalty
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