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Luigi Mangione bizarrely withdraws ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ defense claim 1 day after filing it
Luigi Mangione bizarrely withdraws ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ defense claim 1 day after filing it
Luigi Mangione has abruptly scrapped the psychiatric defense he planned to use at his upcoming trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
nypost.com
Luigi Mangione has apparently abruptly scrapped the psychiatric defense he planned to use at his upcoming trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“The defense respectfully withdraws CPL 250.10 notice at this time,” the accused killer’s lawyers wrote to Judge Gregory Carro in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The letter — which refers to the specific part of New York’s criminal code — could mean that Mangione no longer plans to claim he was overtaken by an “extreme emotional disturbance” when he gunned down Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk in December 2024.
But one experienced Big Apple defense attorney said Mangione could still use the eyebrow-raising tactic — just without providing any medical evidence that he has mental health issues.
“They are still perfectly free to pursue the defense of extreme emotional disturbance,” defense lawyer Ron Kuby told The Post Thursday.
Now, Mangione’s lawyers “cannot call any mental health experts to testify about his mental health,” are barred from showing jurors “any psychiatric or mental health records,” and “cannot introduce any evidence that talks about him having any psychiatric malady,” Kuby added.
If the psychiatric defense is still used in some form — and if jurors buy it — the legal gambit would knock the charge down to manslaughter instead of murder, carrying less prison time.
~Snip~
Heather Cucolo, a criminal law professor at New York Law School, said a jury “is going to have a difficult time with this” because of evidence that Mangione meticulously planned the execution, including by lying in wait outside Thompson’s hotel in Midtown before the broad daylight shooting.
But Kuby had called the psych strategy “sort of the perfect defense” because it would allow Mangione’s lawyers to highlight the healthcare system’s perils as they probed Mangione’s hatred of Thompson.
Commentary:
Which kind of ruins the not guilty defense, and effectively is an admission of guilt.
What’s also interestingly silly are the women who are now in love with him. He’s unavailable but they can long for him between conjugal visits-keeps them going.
Evidence will prove premeditation and planning by Mangione before he stalked and executed a husband, father and son. Give him his day in court and when found guilty give him the same sentence.
