{"id":30911,"date":"2026-06-20T21:24:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30911"},"modified":"2026-06-20T21:24:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:24:50","slug":"mangiones-lawyers-reverse-course-on-psychiatric-defence-in-state-murder-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/06\/20\/mangiones-lawyers-reverse-course-on-psychiatric-defence-in-state-murder-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Mangione&#8217;s lawyers reverse course on psychiatric defence in state murder trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ssrcss-vxwoax-ComponentWrapper e1aon0op1\" data-block=\"text\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-126h8e-Spacer e1aon0op0\">\n<div data-testid=\"rich-text\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-nqezkk-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Lawyers for the defendant accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson will no longer argue a psychiatric defence at his state murder trial.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Luigi Mangione&#8217;s attorneys reversed course a day after telling Judge Gregory Carro that they would try to show he was suffering from &#8220;extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the occurrence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty in both the federal and state cases against him for the fatal shooting of Thompson in midtown Manhattan at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The BBC has contacted Mangione&#8217;s attorneys. The Manhattan district attorney&#8217;s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-vxwoax-ComponentWrapper e1aon0op1\" data-block=\"links\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-126h8e-Spacer e1aon0op0\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1gccci3-Stack e1y4nx260\">\n<ul class=\"ssrcss-94r6ik-Stack e1y4nx260\" role=\"list\">\n<li class=\"ssrcss-qzx51b-LinkItem e3eyuya1\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1gccci3-Stack e1y4nx260\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-7zrqh4-LinkHeadline e3eyuya4\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c1lym76jyymo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span aria-hidden=\"false\">Mangione&#8217;s lawyers plan psychiatric defence in state murder trial<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-vxwoax-ComponentWrapper e1aon0op1\" data-block=\"text\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-126h8e-Spacer e1aon0op0\">\n<div data-testid=\"rich-text\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-nqezkk-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The reversal came ahead of a Thursday deadline Mangione&#8217;s legal team was facing to provide prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney&#8217;s office with information in support of the psychiatric defence claim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If Mangione had pursued the psychiatric defence, and the jury accepted it, then he could have faced a shorter prison sentence as he might have faced a conviction for manslaughter, instead of murder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By using a psychiatric defence argument, Mangione would have essentially admitted to killing Thompson with mitigating circumstances, legal expert Richard Schoenstein told CBS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That argument is different from pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, which typically seeks exoneration and a punishment that includes a psychiatric facility rather than prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mangione appeared in court on Wednesday as the judge spoke about his then-planned psychiatric defence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His next court date is scheduled for 11 August, before the state trial begins on 8 September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mangione is also facing federal stalking charges, which can bring a maximum sentence of life in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was arrested days after Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot from behind by a masked gunman on 4 December 2024 as he walked into a Manhattan hotel for an annual investor conference.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c20y162gpm6o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Lawyers for the defendant accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson will no longer argue a psychiatric defence at his state murder trial. Luigi Mangione&#8217;s attorneys reversed course a day after telling Judge <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/06\/20\/mangiones-lawyers-reverse-course-on-psychiatric-defence-in-state-murder-trial\/\" title=\"Mangione&#8217;s lawyers reverse course on psychiatric defence in state murder trial\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[2731,11010,4526,8464,12631,10907],"class_list":["post-30911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-usa","tag-brian-thompson","tag-luigi-mangione","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york-city","tag-psychiatric-defence","tag-unitedhealthcare","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30912,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911\/revisions\/30912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}