Editorial: Leftist ‘martyr' now tries to save his own rear

Many progressives elevated accused killer Luigi Mangione to folk-hero status after he was arrested and accused of gunning down a health insurance executive in cold blood in New York City in late 2024. The horrifically twisted theory is that executing business executives should be celebrated if it seemingly advances some left-wing cause du jour.

But it's quite telling how this leftist vigilante has now gone weak-kneed when it comes to sacrificing for his misguided cause.

On Wednesday, CBS News reported that Mangione's defense "will argue that he was suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance" when he killed Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. This could allow a jury to convict him on the lesser charge of manslaughter. It's not an insanity defense, but it is an effort to blame psychiatric problems for Mangione's actions.

"It seems like they are giving up the question of who did it," legal expert Richard Schoenstein told the network. "This is a defense when you are conceding that he is the person who pulled the trigger. You're not fighting that anymore. You're turning from if and who to why. This is now a why defense."

This is the approach of a coward, not a martyr.

Writings that Mangione had in his backpack when he was arrested included screeds against the healthcare industry, according to reports. Many leftists subsequently tagged him with the hero label, a soldier fighting for "social justice" and against the "evils" of capitalism. San Francisco was home to "Luigi: The Musical," detailing his story. Jack Butler of The Wall Street Journal wrote this week that Mangione has "reportedly received nearly 7,000 personal letters at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. A crowdsourced legal defense fund has raised more than $1.5 million."

But a true martyr wouldn't cut and run. He might look to turn the trial into a political spectacle highlighting perceived injustices in the healthcare system and then accept his fate as the price for standing firm in his beliefs. He might even admit his actions, plead guilty and accept his fate.

For instance, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, had the courage to plead guilty and live with his punishment (life behind bars) rather than suffer the indignity of allowing his attorneys to portray him as mentally unbalanced.

Mangione instead wants to hide behind an "emotional disturbance" defense to save his own rear. In other words, he won't say he committed this vile homicide out of allegiance to some misguided political ideology. No, he did it, his lawyers will say, because he's off in the head.

Martyr? Mangione is a murderous criminal.

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This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 12:39 PM.