Jared Lee Loughner is not competent to stand trial on charges of trying to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
The judge said his ruling is based on the results of court-ordered medical evaluations of Loughner at a federal hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Two medical professionals did separate evaluations of Loughner.
Loughner, 22, of Tucson, Arizona, is charged with killing six people and wounding 13 more, including Giffords, D-Arizona, who was holding a meet-and-greet with constituents in Tucson at the time of the January 8 shooting.
During Wednesday’s hearing in Tucson to determine Loughner’s competency, marshals removed Loughner from the courtroom after an outburst in which one reporter heard him say, “Thank you for the freak show. She died right in front of me,” and “You’re changing …”
After the recess, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns asked Loughner if he wanted to watch the remainder of the proceedings on a television monitor, Loughner said yes, and he was removed from courtroom.
Those killed in January’s shooting were a 9-year-old girl, Christina Taylor Green; John Roll, a 63-year-old U.S. District Court judge in Arizona; Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman, 30, Giffords’ director of community outreach; retired librarian Phyllis Scheck, 79; retired construction worker Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and retiree Dorothy “Dot” Morris, 76.
Loughner has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Giffords, who was shot through the head and brain, is recovering from surgery that implanted a synthetic bone and a shunt in her skull, her doctors said last week. She was in attendance last week when the Space Shuttle Endeavour took off from Florida with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, in command.
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10 Responses
yuck- he’s creepy looking
No murderer except OJ was competent enough to stand trial.
Loughner isn’t an insane individual; he’s an extreme right conservative that was inspired by the Tea Party. The judge, a Bush appointee, is sympathetic to the Tea Party and, therefore, failed to pursue justice for Giffords.
Loughner is a LEFT winger and hater of conservatives.
He read left wing idiocy like the
Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf which was authored by the National SOCIALIST leader and left wing animal rights wacko, who was the ‘Fuhrer’ of Germany during WW2 Yerach Shemo.
This nutcase never went to any Tea Party meetings or said anything in favor of them.
He had shrines of human skulls and other left wing occult ideologies.
And the whole idea of these wanton murderers being decided to be ‘incompetent’ is just more left wing psychobabble.
Dave you’re logic is as twisted as Loughner itself, wake up you foolish liberal.
hereorthere:
“He had shrines of human skulls and other left wing occult ideologies”??k
Reality check: what is a left wing occult ideology?
Human skulls and the occult aren’t totems of the left wing or liberalism–“crazy” marches under all political banners.
Neo-Nazis are more likely to hold political opinions similar to the right/conservative than to the left. The fact that “socialist” is in the name is more an artifact than an accurate reflection of support of socialist principles.
redavid:
The legal system recognizes that there are people who understand right from wrong yet murder anyway. It also recognizes that there are people who have severe psychological problems. Incarcerating psychotics, schizophrenics, and other people with mental illness serves neither to promote justice nor to deter crime. It also does nothing to “fix” or treat the underlying problem.
Note that this is not a defense of the current prison system (bad) or of the current state of psychiatric in-patient facilities (horrible).
he’s left wing,right wing,center,
He’s a Meshugune Bahema ! Thats what he is !
Oh, he didn’t attend Tea Party events. Ok, so he was inspired by the fear-mongering visible at the racist rallies against the first black president of the US. I mean the bright Congressmen, I mean Democrats of course, warned us and then he came along. I mean, that’s what the media and Congressman (of course not the Tea Baggers) were saying all along: he was a Tea Party fanatic. This judge should be investigated!
But he was competent to plan and carried out his desire to murder?
An insane murderer is no less dangerous than a sane one.