Luigi Mangione’s last-minute move leaves everyone guessing

CPL 250.10 – Luigi Mangione’s attorneys withdrew a planned psychiatric strategy hours before a New York deadline to turn over his psychiatric records, after a judge unsealed details of an “extreme emotional disturbance” approach. The state murder trial remains on track for

Hours before a key deadline in Luigi Mangione’s New York state murder case, his defense team pulled the plug on a psychiatric strategy they had previously told the judge they planned to pursue.

Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who died in 2024. The case has drawn intense public interest ever since.

On Wednesday. June 17. Judge Gregory Carro unsealed a motion from Mangione’s attorneys outlining plans for what’s known as an affirmative psychiatric defense. The approach was tied to a claim that Mangione suffered an extreme emotional disturbance when he allegedly shot Thompson outside a Midtown hotel.

Carro gave the defense until Thursday to share details of that strategy with prosecutors. Instead. Mangione’s lawyers filed a one-line notice—hours before the defense was set to hand over his psychiatric records to the Manhattan district attorney’s office—saying they were abandoning the plan “at this time” and providing no replacement strategy.

“The defense respectfully withdraws CPL § 250.10 notice at this time,” the filing said.

The timing has unsettled observers because the psychiatric plan had been part of the defense’s announced direction just the day before. It also triggered a second question: why would a strategy built around admission and sentence reduction be pulled so quickly?

Carro also ruled that the court records laying out the abandoned defense will stay sealed, keeping the specifics of why the defense fell apart out of public view for now. That means the public is left with the outline of what was planned—without the explanation for why it was withdrawn.

Under New York law. an extreme emotional disturbance defense allows a murder defendant to admit to the killing while arguing that a triggering event caused a temporary loss of self-control. If a jury accepts the argument by a greater weight of the evidence. the charge drops from murder to manslaughter—an outcome that can shave years off a potential sentence. Wednesday’s announcement had therefore been a major shift in how the defense planned to approach the trial. and then Thursday’s reversal turned it into an immediate mystery.

Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said: “If a defendant goes with an [extreme emotional disturbance] defense, they’re essentially admitting publicly that they committed this crime.”

Mangione’s state murder trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8.

A transcript released Thursday adds another piece to the timeline. In early June. Mangione’s legal team told the judge that the logistics of his pending federal case made it difficult to mount an emotional disturbance defense in the state trial at the same time. The attorneys also said some medical experts had declined to get involved as consulting doctors specifically because of how high-profile the case has become.

Now, with the CPL § 250.10 notice withdrawn and no new strategy offered in its place, the defense’s path forward is still unclear—while sealed records keep the reasons for the sudden retreat out of sight.

Luigi Mangione Brian Thompson UnitedHealthcare murder trial New York state extreme emotional disturbance CPL 250.10 psychiatric records Judge Gregory Carro Midtown hotel Manhattan district attorney Sept. 8 trial date