Attorneys for Luigi Mangione are withdrawing his psychiatric defense in the state murder trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, documents filed Thursday show.
The development comes one day after a judge said the defense team planned to argue that Mangione was experiencing an extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
Mangione faces eight felony charges, including second-degree murder, in connection with the fatal shooting of Thompson outside an annual investor conference in Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
Mangione also faces federal stalking charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Both the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Mangione’s lawyers declined to comment.
Had the defense team been able to prove the disturbance, a possible conviction would have been reduced from second-degree murder to first-degree manslaughter.
On Wednesday, state Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro, who is overseeing the case, said he would unseal records relating to an affirmative psychiatric defense and an emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
On Thursday, Carro said they would remain sealed.
According to a transcript released Thursday, Mangione’s legal team told the judge in early June that logistics related to the federal case made it difficult for them to present an emotional disturbance defense strategy.
The defense attorneys also said at that hearing that some doctors had refused to cooperate as medical experts because of the notoriety of the case.
Mangione’s trial is scheduled to begin in September.
Thompson, 50, was chief executive of the country’s largest health insurer, and his killing unleashed a torrent of hostility toward the industry.
Prosecutors have said they plan to introduce evidence from a diary seized during Mangione’s arrest that authorities say details his plans to kill Thompson and describes what to do if you want to “rebel against the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel.”
“Wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” the diary says, according to a filing from the district attorney’s office. “It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents.”
Mangione’s lawyers sought to bar the diary from being used as evidence at trial, arguing that it was seized illegally during a warrantless search.
Carro rejected that argument and described the search that recovered the diary as valid.
