Luigi Mangione plans to assert a psychiatric defense at his state murder trial, claiming he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance when he gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a judge said Wednesday. It wouldn’t absolve him of the Dec. 4, 2024, killing, but could free him from prison sooner.
If a jury accepts that defense, the panel would convict Mangione of manslaughter and he would face up to 25 years in prison. Alternatively, the jury could reject the extreme emotional disturbance defense and convict him of murder, which carries a potential life sentence. That defense isn’t available in his federal case.
The US legal system is incredibly fucked. You take plea deals even though you’re innocent because if you don’t, the judge and prosecutor are so biased they’ll lock you up with hardly a shed of evidence, or the legal costs will bankrupt you and your family, or you’ll spend years behind bars before a sentence is decided on. So he might just have to take a tactical approach because “there was a gun” and the jury would probably convict, anyway - because of course they’re chosen for their biases, too.