Loughner found incompetent to stand trial

Source: azstar

Jared Loughner is incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge decided today.

A psychologist and psychiatrist both found Loughner unable to help in his own defense or understand the proceedings.

Doctors say he is schizophrenic.

U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns said doctors report Loughner is unable to help with his defense because of his irrational distrust of lawyers.

Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_1d5ce648-86f8-11e0-82ec-001cc4c03286.html

Of course that doesn't mean we ought to hand him a gun. Frankly, if we had any sort of mental health system beyond prison, this might not have happened.

will actually be put on the street?

Probably he'll be incarcerated in a Mental Hospital for long-term treatment.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/2006-02-01/webextra5.php

Good to know other places are a little more careful.

Since he hasn't been tried, he doesn't get to walk. He's treated until he is competent to stand Trial.

so you may not be too far off the mark. The institutions for the truly troubled are in bad shape everywhere but usually they still find room for the ones that have any notoriety.

He will be held at one of the BoP's adminitrative-level custody medical centers.

a mental facility of some sort until the time he can stand trial...

If that ever happens.

medication in order to be tried and incarcerated? These cases are never easy.

if needed. Most folks will comply without it, though.

in psychosis. Imagine coming to your senses and discovering what you'd done!

Hinckley's still in a facility, after all.

not incompetent.

He has been given free time of up to 10 days at a time for 12 times a years away from the facility. He has to have a GPS enabled cell phone but that is all. He is basically free.

In most places, and I gather Texas is an exception, you are locked up until deemed competent to stand trial, and then tried.

Given a choice between a prison and many mental health facilities for the criminally insane, this result is not a "win" by any means.

I was skeptical of this when I first saw it, but then I saw that the evaluation was conducted at the federal medical center at Springfield. This is an excellent facility, with many of the best forensic psychologists and psychiatrists in the Bureau of Prisons. This means this is because he's been charged federally: had he not been, he would have been evaluated in a state facility.

If he is malingering, they would be able to make that determination. It's likely that he has had prior mental health contact that supports this diagnosis. The folks there work for the government: there is nothing in it for them to find someone incompetent if they are actually competent.

I was skeptical at first because many folks who follow the "freeman" philosophy are regarded, at least at first, by the courts as insane, and made to undergo an evaluation: federal judges are not used to people questioning their authority. Folks at Springfield, though, are intimately acquainted with the Freemen and their crazy beliefs: just because you believe something crazy does not make you crazy in a legal sense. In this case, though, we have a crazy person who also believes crazy things: likely he has incorporated the freeman ideology into his delusional system.

He will undergo competency restoration, probably at Springfield. If he actually is schizophrenic, and we have no reason to think he's not, he will be medicated. If he responds to the antipsychotic meds, and many folks do, he will be reevaluated. If he is found competent, he will then undergo a trial.

Under no circumstances, though, will he be cut loose. If his competency cannot be restored, he will simply reside in the federal prison system forever. Not the first person like this.

and goes on trial will it then boil down to was he competent at the time of the shooting?

Sanity and competency. They are separate issues: apparently, what was at issue here is competency. It may be that the sanity issue will be handled later.

Sanity refers to the sanity at the time of the offense. The standard for insanity in a legal sense at the federal level is high: one has to be crazy enough to not realize the nature and wrongfulness of the act. If, for example, you try to cover up your crime, it's evidence of sanity.

Competency refers to your ability to assist counsel, which was the issue here.

Obviously crazy, but whether he's crazy enough to qualify as NGRI is to be decided. He will never get out, at any rate.

Is anyone?

Everybody and his fucking neighbor see Loughner do the shootings and the arsehole is apprehended with the smoking gun. He has been afforded all the legalities and protection of the American Justice System but he won’t stand trial because he is crazy!

On the other hand:

Pvt. Manning has NOT been charged but has been held in confinement suitable only for Hannibal Lecter. All Manning did was release classified material that some idiot in the State Department most likely classified as TOP SECRET in error.

BLIND JUSTICE AT WORK!

Quite frankly, if Mr. Manning had not volunteered for the opportunity to fight in a war already in progress, he would not be where he is now.

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Do we really believe that mentally ill people, seriously mentally ill people should be put on trial and then thrown into prison? Or does it depend upon if we agree with the situation?

It's a simple matter to practice compassion in the abstract, much harder in the specific. Where we truly stand on such matters defines who we really are as Democrats, whether the words are empty and the values conditional.

There are the mentally ill who aren't a danger, and then there are the Mentally Ill who are dangerous psychopaths like Loughner, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Palin, and 95% of the rest of the repigs and billionaires.

The repigs claim that Liberals are traitors & evil. I'm sick of being nice to them.

And that is not the issue. I stand 100% behind my original post. The most common definition of psychopathy is a person with a serious lack of empathy and/or antisocial personality characteristics. 95% of repigs have that characteristic. They value money over people, and hate anybody who isn't in their tribe. The term "tribe" can mean "rich businessmen", or "lying pedophile repig politicians", or "white people who listen to Limbaugh", among many others.

You HAVE to be a psychopath to be a member of the repig party.

If you don't think defining "mental illness" as "people I don't like" is ridiculously problematic and the cause of vast amounts of harm, you need to get a basic clue as to what mental illnesses actually are before you try rejoining the grown-ups discussing these sorts of issues.

Try to read my post before responding to it. I made a very clear argument why I feel repigs are psychopaths. I used the definition of psychopathy to make my argument. It appears your argument consists of "I'm ignoring your post and insulting you".

Competent to stand trial, sane at the time of the offense. Most folks who are not competent or insane in a legal sense have some sort of delusional disorder, schizophrenia, or severe mental retardation.

claiming they are mentally ill is being mean. As if being mentally ill is that person's fault.

are mentally ill.

I know that, because I just read it.

Read my reply #32.

Wow.

Where should be put the Gulag, and can we name it after you?

Whenever mental illness comes up in DU threads some real winners pop out of the woodwork.

Read my post #34.

No thanks. Anyone who can't type 'Republican' instead of 'Repigs' when flailing about to discuss a serious matter is decidedly unserious, and merits zero clicks.

Suit yourself.

Source: Raw Story

LOS ANGELES – A US judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Loughner was unfit to stand trial over charges he tried to assassinate a US congresswoman and killed six other people in Arizona, US media reported.

Loughner had to be removed from court in Tucson after making an outburst at a hearing to decide if he was mentally competent to stand trial over the attack, which targeted lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords in January.

Judge Larry A. Burns said doctors found that Loughner has an irrational distrust of lawyers, and was therefore unable to help in his defense or understand the court proceedings, the Arizona Star reported online.

Loughner, 22, was arrested after the shooting at a public meeting Giffords held in Tucson on January 8, which triggered a wave of soul-searching over America's starkly divisive political culture.



Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/25/jared-lee-loughner-ruled-unfit-to-stand-trial-for-shooting-rep-giffords/

It would be irrational to trust most lawyers. Then the insanity defense plea would be more rational.

and by that, I mean he knows what he did was wrong.

fire the psychologists and psychiatrists then. Either way, he's never going to be free so I don't understand the big deal.

The guy is crazy as a shithouse mouse.

of insanity.

Usually these guys are marched right through to the electric chair.

Not only is it damn near impossible to place the insane into institutional care, it is also impossible to prevent the insane from assembling deadly arsenals. Given this dynamic ordinary people are nothing more than a shooting gallery for the deranged and armed.