An emotional disturbance defense is not the same as a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, which would allow a defendant to go to a psychiatric facility instead of prison.<\/p>\n
Circumstances of case could hamper defense, expert says <\/p>\n
To establish an emotional disturbance defense, Mangione\u2019s lawyers must demonstrate that the disturbance was so extreme it robbed him of self-control; that, in his mind, there was a reasonable explanation for the disturbance; and that it influenced him to kill Thompson.<\/p>\n
Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor and expert in mental health law, said Mangione’s lawyers could try to accomplish that by having a psychologist testify about his mental state at the time of the killing and the extent of any trauma, abuse or emotional instability he’s suffered. But, she said, they aren’t required to show any proof of a mental illness or show he was in danger.<\/p>\n
The circumstances of Mangione’s case could make it tough for his lawyers to convince jurors to accept a defense that people often associate with crimes of passion or a sudden outburst where someone is given shocking information that evokes a strong response, Cucolo said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Mangione planned the attack, wrote in a notebook about wanting to \u201cwack\u201d a health insurance executive and traveled from out of state to ambush Thompson, 50, as the CEO walked to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. \u201cDelay,\u201d \u201cdeny\u201d and \u201cdepose\u201d were written on the ammunition, police said, mimicking a phrase describing how insurers avoid paying claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want to view this within a relatively short period of time and they want it to be simply laid out,\u201d Cucolo said, giving the example of a spousal killing over infidelity. As time passes, she said, \u201cpeople are not as willing to accept this emotional response that ends up in the death of a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mangione\u2019s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, protested Carro’s decision to unseal materials related to his psychiatric defense, saying it will be \u201cprejudicial to his defense to the exact same facts\u201d in his federal case.<\/p>\n
Last month, Carro ruled that the notebook and a 3D-printed pistol<\/a>, which prosecutors say matches the gun used to kill Thompson, can be used as evidence<\/a> against Mangione. But he said a loaded gun magazine and other items were seized during an \u201cimproper warrantless search\u201d<\/a> when he was arrested in Pennsylvania five days after the killing. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, Carro dismissed a charge related to the magazine.<\/p>\n __<\/p>\n This story has been corrected to show that Mangione could receive less prison time as a result of a conviction using this defense, not be sent to a psychiatric facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An emotional disturbance defense is not the same as a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-269982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}