Judge rules Loughner is not competent to stand trial

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/25/arizona.loughner.competency/?hpt=T1

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- Jared Lee Loughner, accused of a mass shooting in which he allegedly tried to assassinate Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, isn't competent to stand trial, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The judge said he based his decision on two recent court-ordered mental evaluations of Loughner at a federal hospital in Springfield, Missouri.

"The defendant was not able to comprehend the charges," U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ruled.

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Matthew Carroll both concluded that Loughner isn't competent to stand trial because he cannot assist in his defense due to mental illness.

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but he was competent enough to by a semi-auto pistol, two 30 round mags and ammo to fill them

yup

...no one had forced the mental health issue with Jared Loughner until it was too.

This is a perfect example of why we need better mental health care in the US.

Our mental health care system is a joke.

We really do need to identify and treat the mentally ill in our country better, and take civil measures to adjudicate the unwilling mentally ill into treatment.

Gun store owners are not qualified to judge someone mentally ill, but they do a NICS to see if someone is prohibited from purchasing/possessing a gun for any reason.

Brewer closed all of the community mental health clinics in the Pima County area. So unless his parents has a ton of money, they were SOL if they wanted to. Even worse, it was down the memory hole the first day, being crowded out with bullshit about extended mags and Palin's cross hairs.

I just hear tell of somebody else gettin' shot 60 times in that very locale .

I wonder if it had anything to do with his mom working for the county. . .

A number of people, including one of his faculty advisors saw erratic and dangerous behavior in him but "didn't want to report it" and tag him as a problem student.

They all meant well, but we all saw how that turned out.

In the case of Loughner, I'm betting the Sheriff, who seemed so quick to get in front of the cameras, knew he had let this one slip after the multiple (IIRC at least 6) neighborhood and University complaints to his office and wanted to try and get ahead of the issue.

In this country we wait for people to commit a crime before denying them rights.

I'm sure there are other countries where that order is not so important that you might prefer.

How's the violent crime rate there?

If you are in this influential group and desire to own a firearm, a means will be found. Obviously the lower classes lack the intelligence to be allow to own such weapons.

Our founding fathers opposed this type of government and thought that the average person was responsible enough to own firearms. A very liberal and progressive idea, indeed!

Not "is". Not anymore.


Which is the whole point of the system.