Luigi Mangione Withdraws Defense - Or Does He?

[00:00:00]The latest new development in the Luigi Mangione prosecution is seemingly undone.

[00:00:06]Or is it?

[00:00:08]What's going on? May it please the audience. I'm Rich Schoenstein. Welcome back to So Sue Me.

[00:00:13]I just dropped a piece yesterday, but I have to do this follow-up because of big new development. I got a haircut.

[00:00:22]Okay, that's only one new development.

[00:00:24]Also, there was a giant parade downtown.

[00:00:26]That was a new development, but that's not what I'm talking about. Luigi Mangione.

[00:00:31]Yesterday, it came out that Luigi Mangione may be asserting an extreme emotional disturbance defense at his New York State Court trial. And if you want to know what that is, you can go listen to my last post where I go over it in detail, what the elements are, what the proof is, why he might pursue that.

[00:00:54]Basically, it is a defense. It's not an insanity defense where you're arguing you're not guilty because you have a mental impediment. It is a defense that can take a murder charge down to manslaughter. And here could take a potential life sentence down to 25 years or less. That's why you would assert it.

[00:01:15]How do we know that Luigi Mangione was going to pursue the extreme emotional disturbance defense? Well, he had given something called CPL section 250.10 notice.

[00:01:33]And that is notice of an intent to use psychiatric evidence. I think specifically, there was an indication that he had an expert witness who had evaluated Luigi Mangione and would potentially testify at trial that Mangione had an extreme emotional disturbance. And I theorized yesterday that this might be a way to draw in the whole insurance aspect into this case to argue that he had become enraged or disturbed by his interactions with the insurance industry and that that was what prompted him to kill Brian Thompson if indeed he did it. And I pointed out that the problem with that defense is you're essentially conceding that you're the person who killed the guy. You're essentially conceding guilt but arguing that there is some sort of partial justification.

[00:02:29]And we talked yesterday about why would you want to do that? You might want to do that if you thought the evidence of guilt was overwhelming and you were still trying to reduce the sentence. So today we get a new court filing and let's look at it because what it is and wasn't isn't are important. Here you go.

[00:02:47]It's a letter. It is a letter signed by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, one of Luigi Mangione's excellent defense lawyers, and it's one sentence long. Dear Justice Caro, the defense respectfully withdraws CPL section 250.10 notice at this time.

[00:03:08]At this time hangs at the end of the sentence as if to suggest we might change our minds in the future but at this time we withdraw the notice. We're not using psychiatric evidence. You may have noticed that that letter doesn't say we withdraw the extreme emotional disturbance defense. In fact, they had never formally imposed or said they were pursuing the extreme emotional disturbance defense. It just became apparent that that was a possibility because they had given notice of psychiatric evidence. They don't have to assert a defense. They get to do whatever they want at trial. They can simply challenge the prosecution's evidence or if they decide to put on a defense, they can put on a defense. And you can put on the extreme emotional disturbance defense without any psychiatric evidence. You can do it.

[00:04:06]There have been defendants who have done it just by testifying and telling their story. You can presumably offer other evidence like friends and families who can tell you he was disturbed. You can do it without psychiatric evidence. It's just generally thought of not to be as effective as putting on an expert witness who would testify, you know, from a psychological standpoint that this happened. But there's one major drawback, well, there's two major drawbacks of putting on a psychological expert. One is you have to produce all the records. You have to produce the exam records, you have to produce the report, you have to produce all this evidence, and that evidence could include evidence of guilt.

[00:04:51]And could include things that don't support the defense or otherwise hurt your case. So you might not want to produce that evidence. Secondly, if you have an psychiatric evidence, the prosecution can demand to conduct its own psychiatric evaluation of the defendant in order to rebut the defense.

[00:05:13]And you might not want to subject your client to a psychiatric evaluation by an expert appointed by New York State.

[00:05:22]You might have been looking to avoid that. So by withdrawing your notice, your 250.10 notice, you get out of putting that evidence, producing that evidence to the other side, and you potentially get out of a psychiatric evaluation.

[00:05:40]The prosecution can still ask for one.

[00:05:43]But look at what happens here under section 250.10.

[00:05:48]I don't know if they call 250.10 or 250.10.

[00:05:52]Forgive me. I know I keep moving back and forth. Notice of intent to proffer psychiatric evidence examination of defendant under application of prosecutor. The term psychiatric evidence means evidence of mental disease or defect to be offered by the defendant in connection with an affirmative defense of lack of criminal responsibility. That would include extreme emotional disturbance. In fact, B says specifically evidence of mental disease or defect to be offered by defendant in connection with the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance.

[00:06:27]Then it says psychiatric evidence is not admissible unless the defendant serves on the people written notice of his intention to present psychiatric evidence. And it gives a time limit.

[00:06:40]And then it says when a defendant gives that notice the prosecution can ask for an order directing the defendant to submit to an examination by a psychiatrist or licensed psychologist appointed by the district attorney.

[00:07:00]And then there it goes on to talk about what happens after the examination. But look at the last section. This is the important one, section five. If the court finds the defendant has willfully refused to cooperate in examination ordered by the court it may preclude the introduction of testimony by a psychiatrist or psychologist concerning mental disease or defect. In other words, the defendant can't use its psychiatrist if it didn't let the prosecution conduct an exam.

[00:07:31]Where, however, the defendant has other proof of his affirmative defense and the court has found that the defendant did not submit to cooperate fully in the examination ordered by the court, this other evidence, if otherwise competent, shall be admissible.

[00:07:48]Meaning, he can put the non-psychiatric expert evidence in even if he didn't submit to an exam. In such case, the court must instruct the jury that the defendant did not submit to or cooperate fully in the pretrial psychiatric examination ordered by the court.

[00:08:06]So, you would get to put in your other evidence, but then the court's going to tell the jury, "Hey, this guy didn't sit for a psychiatric exam, and you can consider that when you consider his defense." So, that's a lot to unpack, but essentially, the key point to me is he hasn't withdrawn an extreme emotional disturbance defense. See, he hasn't necessarily submitted one because you don't know until trial if he's actually going to argue that, if his lawyers are going to argue that on his behalf. So, if he hasn't argued it yet, he can't withdraw it. He hasn't withdrawn the defense. He's withdrawn the evidence.

[00:08:45]He's not going to offer a psychiatric expert witness. He does have that place saver language in the lawyer's letter at this time, but we're pretty close to trial. Trial's in September. So, the court's not going to let him in August pop up and say, "Oh, I have an expert witness after all." There are time limits for all of this stuff. He's been on notice. They had put in the notice.

[00:09:10]Now, they've retracted the notice. I don't think the court would let them go back to it, especially if they wait very long. So, it seems like there's not going to be a psychiatric expert offered in this case.

[00:09:25]Why not? Well, again, the defense team presumably didn't want to produce all of that medical information and/or didn't want to subject to their their to an examination by a psychiatrist appointed by the prosecution. Those seem like the reasons. It could also be they didn't like the way that defense was playing in the public reporting and they wanted to do something that indicated they were retracting it. There's a lot of different strategy things that could play into the decision and I don't know what they all are and I'm not as smart as his defense team anyway, so I can't tell you exactly why they did it. But they have changed it. They're not going to offer a psychiatric expert and they don't have to produce the evidence. To me, the biggest question is why did they do that today?

[00:10:17]Why didn't they decide that yesterday before they were in court and all of this came out in public? Remember, there had been prior proceedings on this issue under seal. The reason they were under seal is because it has implications for the federal case because in federal court, there is no extreme emotional disturbance defense. So they didn't want to put things on the record in state court that could be used against them in federal court. If they had made the decision to withdraw the notice of psychiatric evidence, why didn't they do that yesterday before they was discussed in open court and widely reported all over the place? I don't understand that.

[00:11:01]It would suggest that something happened in the past 24 hours since that came out, but that actually seems unlikely.

[00:11:08]They would have had discussions with the psychiatrist. They would have seen the medical records. They would have strategized about whether or not it was worth producing them and the pros and cons of pursuing this defense. All of that should have been done before yesterday. So I don't know why we went down this path just for them to withdraw the notice. That seems odd to to but as I've said here many times, he's got great lawyers and and I'm really not in a position to second-guess what they did. I mean, I guess I am because I just sort of did it, but really I don't purport to second-guess them. I assume they're making sound strategic decisions on behalf of their client. So, that's where we are in Luigi Mangione. A little bit of whiplash. Yesterday we think there's a big psychiatric defense coming up, today maybe not.

[00:12:01]But also maybe.

[00:12:03]Still maybe.

[00:12:05]A lot more to come on this case. As we close in on this trial in September, I think things are just going to get more and more interesting. What are the arguments? What's the evidence? What's jury selection going to look like?

[00:12:17]We've got a lot coming and I'm going to keep an eye on it. I'll be back here to report more. Thanks for watching again.

[00:12:24]Like the video, subscribe to the whole situation. We'll see you soon. For now, we are adjourned.