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CEO shooting suspect may win with this 'very strong, public political defense': lawyer

Luigi Mangione — who has been charged in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — could be banking on one particular defense strategy in order to prevail in court.

On Friday, Mangione hired attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo — a former New York City prosecutor with decades of experience in criminal law — to represent him in court as he defends himself against five charges, including second-degree murder. While it remains unknown exactly how Mangione will argue his innocence, one attorney recently told the Guardian that he thinks the alleged killer could bank on claiming he was in "extreme emotional disturbance."

"He has one and only one viable defense and that is extreme emotional disturbance," veteran civil rights attorney Ron Kuby said. "One version of extreme emotional disturbance is he just snapped, but the defense is broader than that and certainly covers the slow, bitter, corrosive wearing away of normal sentiments of right and wrong until it all collapses in pain."

Another unnamed New York City-based criminal defense attorney anonymously told the outlet that Mangione will have a "limited number of defenses" available to him. Investigators have been rapidly accumulating evidence to use against Mangione in court, including a 262-word manifesto found on him when he was arrested in Pennsylvania that reportedly encouraged violence, a 3D-printed "ghost gun" and a silencer. The attorney said that for this strategy to work, the "extreme emotional disturbance" would have to be proven "reasonable from the point of view of the defendant at the time that it occurred." Though in New York, this would mean that Mangione's second-degree murder charge would be dropped to first-degree manslaughter, which still carries a hefty prison sentence.

"The good thing about the defense, from what I’m going to assume is Mr Mangione’s perspective, is that it’s a strong legal defense or at least it’s a viable legal defense, but it’s also a very strong public, political defense," Kuby told the Guardian. "All of his difficulties with the health insurance industry, all of his problems with them, everything that he knows and has read and has heard, the whole narrative comes in at the trial to show his state of mind."

While Mangione himself was not a UnitedHealthcare policyholder, investigators say he targeted Brian Thompson given that he was the CEO of the largest health insurance company in America (and the 17th largest company in the world by market cap in 2023). UnitedHealthcare has also been highlighted for having the highest rate of claim denials (with the help of an AI with a 90% error rate that was used to automatically deny elderly patients' claims), which is twice the industry average. And Thompson's slaying has ignited a firestorm of national outrage over denied health insurance claims.

“With the right lawyer, assuming this is what he wants, and he has a lawyer willing to do it, he can use his trial to further the national discussion that he began,” Kuby said. “You don’t have to sacrifice sound legal strategy for your political or social manifesto.”

Click here to read the Guardian's article in full.