Excerpt: "Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of killing six people and wounding Representative Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, is expected to plead guilty in a Tucson court on Tuesday."
Jared Lee Loughner is shown in this booking photograph. (photo: Reuters)
Guilty Plea Is Expected in Rampage That Wounded Giffords
05 Aug 12
ared Lee Loughner, the man accused of killing six people and wounding Representative Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, is expected to plead guilty in a Tucson court on Tuesday, a person in Washington familiar with the case said.
The person confirmed that the federal government believed Mr. Loughner was competent to stand trial and that it would argue that in court on Tuesday. Mr. Loughner is willing to change his plea to guilty at the previously scheduled hearing, the person said.
Psychiatric experts who have examined Mr. Loughner were scheduled to testify in a hearing on Tuesday that he was competent to stand trial and understood the 49 charges against him, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.
The team of four lawyers representing Mr. Loughner did not respond to e-mailed requests for comment on Saturday.
Ms. Giffords, an Arizona Democrat seen as a rising star in the party, was holding one of her regular "Congress On Your Corner" meet-and-greet events outside a Tucson supermarket in January 2011 when she was shot in the head at close range. Six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, were killed, and 12 others were wounded.
Mr. Loughner, 23, faces 49 criminal charges, including first-degree murder, in the rampage. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf last year.
The Wall Street Journal, which also reported that Mr. Loughner would plead guilty, said Tuesday's mental status hearing had been changed to a change-of-plea hearing, citing an official familiar with the case.
If United States District Judge Larry A. Burns were to determine at Tuesday's hearing that Mr. Loughner was fit for trial, he could face the death penalty.
The Los Angeles Times said the details of the plea arrangement were not clear, nor was whether Mr. Loughner would plead guilty to all or just some of the charges in exchange for prison time rather than risk a death sentence at trial.
Tuesday's hearing would have been Mr. Loughner's fourth to determine his competence. Judge Burns ordered the hearing in June at the request of prosecutors and defense lawyers who wanted a status report after more than a year of treatment and legal wrangling over his mental competency.
Mr. Loughner was determined unfit in May 2011 after experts said he suffered from schizophrenia, disordered thinking and delusions.
He has been held at a United States Bureau of Prisons psychiatric hospital in Springfield, Mo., where he is being forcibly medicated.
Ms. Giffords resigned from the House of Representatives in January to focus on her recovery. Her former aide Ron Barber won a special election in June to fill her seat and must win re-election in November to serve a full two-year term.
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Comments
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A "well-regulated militia." Most Americans don't qualify as a "well-regulated " anything. And the "military-grade weapons" of the original Constitutional signers were muskets, not the assault weapons being peddled today.
I agree with what Lawrence O'Donnell said after this shooting: "I blame the individual for the first 10 bullets. I blame the law for the next 21 bullets that he fired."
Someone recently posted the question: Do you blame the car for the drunk driver?
Well, no. But let me ask you this: How many people do you think the drunk driver ought to be allowed to kill before society has a right to expect his driving privileges to be revoked?
And a nine year old girl was killed in this shooting. What about her right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? Why does your "right to bear arms" take precedence over that?
My sympathies to Ms. Giffords, and all victims of mass shootings like this, and their loved ones as well. I've never been shot, but the way things are going . . .
The conspiracy here isn't the US gov to frame some poor deranged monster (note the grinning whacko photo). It's by the NRA (who I wish would have some family killed in these mass shootings) and the spineless Congress to ensure that every lunatic POS can buy an arsenal to do a Dark Knight massacre...lega lly. Note I like guns -they are great fun. But pistols and military rifles are made for killing people, and unfortunately many people like the red-haired zombie in Co. or Loughner, or some others, are in dire need of killing. I've met enough, that I don't trust myself with guns- they are too easy a solution.
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