NEW YORK, United States — Lawyers for Luigi Mangione have withdrawn plans to use a psychiatric defence in his state murder trial over the killing of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, according to court documents filed on Thursday, June 18, 2026.
The filing came a day after Judge Gregory Carro of New York state court said Mangione’s defence team had planned to argue that he was experiencing an extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Thompson, 50, outside an annual investor conference in Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
He has pleaded not guilty.
He faces felony charges in the New York case, including second-degree murder and counts related to criminal possession of a weapon.
If convicted on the murder charge, he could face life in prison.
Mangione also faces federal charges in New York and state charges in Pennsylvania. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Defence Notice Had Been Discussed
At a hearing on Wednesday, Carro said he would unseal a September notice concerning an affirmative psychiatric defence and claims of emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
He also said the defence would need to provide additional documentation by Thursday.
Danny Cevallos, a legal analyst for NBC News, said an extreme emotional disturbance argument is not the same as an insanity defence.
“Despite the name, ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ isn’t an insanity defense, and it won’t get a defendant off the hook,” Cevallos said.
“The person is still guilty of an intentional killing. All it does is lower the level of the crime and the prison time that comes with it.”
Cevallos said such a defence would require jurors to accept that the defendant had been overwhelmed to the point of losing control and that there was a reasonable explanation or excuse for his state of mind.
“To pull it off, though, the defense has to convince the jury, more likely than not, that the defendant was so overwhelmed that he lost control and that there was a ‘reasonable explanation or excuse’ for feeling that way, seeing things the way he believed them to be at the time,” he said.
Trial Scheduled for September
Mangione appeared in court on Wednesday wearing a dark navy suit and a button-down shirt. He was handcuffed when he entered the courtroom and looked down as he walked in.
The killing of Thompson led to a days-long search that ended with Mangione’s arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Last month, Carro ruled that prosecutors may use as evidence a gun and a red notebook that were found on Mangione at the time of his arrest, rejecting a defence argument that the items had been illegally seized.
The next hearing is scheduled to take place virtually in August. The trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8.
