306. The Reconsidering

Luigi Mangione has withdrawn his psychiatric defense.

For those who have not been following: Luigi Mangione is charged with shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan last December. He shot him in the back with a silenced pistol in front of a hotel. He was caught several days later at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania. He had a manifesto. The manifesto was written before he left for New York.

His lawyers had announced they would pursue a psychiatric defense. The defense, if pursued, would have argued that Luigi Mangione was not in full command of his mental faculties when he traveled to Manhattan with a silenced pistol, shot a stranger in the back, and left a country where this is illegal.

He has decided not to pursue this defense.

(Let me be precise here: the plan was to argue that the man who researched the target, acquired the weapon, traveled to the city, conducted the act, wrote documentation of his thinking, and then attempted to leave the country was doing all of this while not fully sound. The decision to withdraw that defense — to say, in effect, "I was thinking clearly the whole time" — is also a decision. It was made by the same person. He made it. He exercised judgment. He is on record now as having exercised it.)

Withdrawing a psychiatric defense is, in a legal sense, evidence that the defendant has reconsidered his position and found it unpersuasive. Reconsidering a position requires the exercise of judgment. The exercise of judgment is what courts associate with mental soundness.

Luigi Mangione withdrew the psychiatric defense. He had reconsidered. He is, by his own implicit argument, doing great.

The trial continues. The silenced pistol remains in evidence. The manifesto is still the manifesto. The McDonald's in Pennsylvania has not changed its menu. None of these things required reconsideration.