Mangione to use ‘psychiatric defense’ in CEO murder trial, judge says
In a dramatic twist in New York City, the judge overseeing Luigi Mangione’s state murder trial has revealed that the defendant, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, initially planned to invoke a ‘psychiatric defense.’ Fox News senior correspondent Eric Shawn reported that Mangione’s legal team intended to argue he experienced an ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ during the alleged crime in December 2024. This approach, if successful, could have resulted in psychiatric treatment rather than imprisonment.
However, in an unexpected turn of events, Luigi Mangione has retracted the psychiatric defense, which was poised to be a pivotal element in his forthcoming trial. This change was disclosed in new court documents released on Thursday.
Mangione’s attorneys submitted a succinct letter to Judge Gregory Carro, stating their decision to withdraw the previously filed notice of a psychiatric defense in the state case. The letter did not provide any reasons for this abrupt change in strategy.
This development follows two weeks of court proceedings focused on the defense strategy, which were conducted in private, prompting media organizations to protest and demand access to the records.
In a related decision on Thursday, Judge Carro decreed that the court’s prior order to seal specific transcripts, emails, and documents will remain in place, given Mangione’s withdrawal of the psychiatric defense notice.
Luigi Mangione appears at a pretrial hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on June 17, 2026. Mangione is accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Bryan Thompson in December 2024. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News)
The reversal marks a dramatic shift in a case that had raised the prospect of an “extreme emotional disturbance” defense — a strategy that, if accepted by jurors after a conviction, could reduce a murder verdict to first-degree manslaughter under New York law.
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Legal observers previously told News Media that pursuing such a defense would have required Mangione’s attorneys to convince jurors that he experienced a loss of self-control stemming from an intense emotional disturbance at the time Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan business conference.
Luigi Mangione appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during an evidence suppression hearing in his murder case on Dec. 12, 2025. (William Farrington/New York Post)
Prosecutors, meanwhile, have alleged that Mangione meticulously planned the killing for months, documenting his thoughts in journals and traveling across the country before ambushing Thompson in New York City.
The withdrawal leaves unanswered questions about what evidence or evaluations may have been developed behind closed doors — records that will now remain sealed under the judge’s order.
Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty and faces both state and federal prosecutions in the high-profile case. His New York murder trial is scheduled to begin in September, with federal proceedings expected to follow next year.