How Luigi Mangione’s legal defense could take shape

He said Mangione would plead not guilty to the charges he faces in Pennsylvania, including the firearms charges.

In New York, he has been charged with second-degree murder in Thompson’s killing and it is unclear how he will plead. He is currently being held in a Pennsylvania state prison where he is fighting extradition to face that murder charge. The legal battle over his extradition could take more than a month to resolve, officials said.

But legal experts told the BBC that his efforts to challenge his extradition to New York are unlikely to succeed. However, they could give your defense a look at the state’s evidence against you.

“I don’t even know if it’s him,” said his lawyer, Dickey, in a recent interview with the American media NewsNation, referring to the images of Thompson’s killer.

“Let’s test those waters and give the government a chance to present some evidence,” he said.

If he is extradited to New York to face the murder charge, Mitchell Epner, a New York-based lawyer and former prosecutor, told the BBC that, broadly speaking, Mangione could take two approaches if he pleads not guilty.

“Defense number one is ‘it wasn’t me’ and defense number two is ‘it was me, but I shouldn’t be punished’ for X,” he said.

According to the NYPD, Mangione was found with a pistol similar to the murder weapon, a silencer and a fake ID, as well as three pages of handwriting that they believe suggest a possible motive.

Epner said the publicly known evidence so far means denying liability is “out of the window.”

Another New York-based lawyer, criminal defense attorney and professor Dmitriy Shakhnevich, said Mangione’s lawyer could also, in theory, argue that an impaired “mental state” makes him unfit to stand trial.

“If a judge determines that he or she does not understand or understand what is happening in court, then essentially the case will not move forward,” he said.

“He will be institutionalized for a period of time until he is deemed fit, which may never happen.”

That defense, Shakhnevich added, is different than an insanity claim, in which his attorneys could argue that “he is not responsible for his actions because of some mental defect.”

“That could also declare him innocent, because the elements of the crime are not met,” he said. “But of course, he is not free. He would be institutionalized for a period, assuming the defense is successful.”