Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting health care insurer Brian Thompson in New York, is unlikely to be able to mount an effective legal defense to the charges, according to experts.
Mr Mangione, 26, was arrested on Monday at a McDonald’s in the town of Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a multi-state manhunt that lasted several days.
New York authorities Forensic evidence says. And the shell casings connect him to the crime scene.
His lawyer, Thomas Dickey, previously told local media that he “has yet to see any evidence” implicating his client.
He said Mr. Mangione would plead not guilty to the charges he faces in Pennsylvania, including the firearms charge.
In New York, he has been charged with second-degree murder for Mr. Thompson’s murder. The 50-year-old chief executive of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed by a masked assailant outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4 in what officials say was a targeted attack.
Mr. Mangione is currently being held in a state prison in Pennsylvania where he is fighting extradition to New York to face the murder charge. The legal battle over his extradition is likely to take more than a month to resolve, officials said.
But legal experts told the BBC that efforts to extradite him to New York were unlikely to succeed. However, they may provide his defense with a semblance of the state’s evidence against him.
“I don’t even know if it’s him,” his lawyer, Mr. Dickey, said in a recent interview with the US media outlet News Nation, referring to photos of Mr. Thompson’s killer.
“We are going to test these waters and give the government an opportunity to produce some evidence,” he said.
If he is extradited to New York to face murder charges, Mr. Mangione and his legal team face an uphill battle as they try to mount a defense, experts said.
Mitchell Eppner, a New York-based lawyer and former prosecutor, told the BBC that Mr Mungione could take two options if he pleaded not guilty to Mr Thompson’s murder.
He said defense number one is ‘it wasn’t me’ and defense number two is ‘it was me, but I shouldn’t be punished for X’.
According to the New York police, Mr. Mangione was found with a gun similar to the murder weapon, a silencer and a fake ID, as well as three handwritten pages that they believe suggested his possible motive. has gone
Mr Eppner said the publicly known evidence so far meant denying responsibility was “out the window”.
Another New York-based lawyer, criminal defense lawyer and professor Dmitri Shakhnevich, said Mr. Mangion’s attorneys could also theoretically argue that an impaired “mental state” made him unfit to stand trial.
“If a judge decides that they misunderstand, or don’t understand, what’s going on in court, basically the case won’t go forward,” he said.
“He will remain institutionalized for a period of time until he is deemed fit, which may never be.”
Mr Shakhnevich added that this defense was different from an insanity plea, in which his lawyers could argue that “he is not responsible for his actions because of a mental disorder”.
“That doesn’t even make him guilty, because you wouldn’t satisfy the elements of the crime,” he said. “But then, he’s not free. He’ll be institutionalized for a period of time, assuming the defense is successful.”
The start of Mr. Mangion’s legal battles prompted anonymous donors to raise thousands of dollars for his defense through online fundraisers.
It comes as some online have backed the suspect and lashed out at the health insurance industry. The New York City Police Department has also warned that some health care executives may be at risk because of a “hit list” posted online after Mr. Thompson’s murder.
In a bulletin, the NYPD said several of the posts that went viral included the names and salaries of other insurance executives. Fake wanted signs featuring some executives have also been posted in Manhattan.
Mr Mangion reportedly had grievances with the wider industry.
Timothy Gallagher, a former FBI agent and managing director of global investigative firm Nardello & Company, said the current climate meant “the threat of a fake cat is real”.
“There are people out there who have complaints and are looking at the amount of press and attention that is being given to the accused,” he said.
Mr Gallagher said there had been “an outpouring of support from the dark corners of the internet” for anti-corporate causes.
“I fear that this will fuel further attacks,” he said.