Click here for U.S. District Judge Alan Burn’s ruling that the feds may continue to forcibly medicate spree killer Jared Lee Loughner beyond the original four-month period approved by the Court. I’ve already written about this abuse of government power. TTAG legal eagle Chris Dumm responds to yesterday’s decision: “That’s what we lawyers call a ‘results-driven’ opinion, where each decision against the defendant is based on multiple excuses. This guarantees that the results of the decision will stand, regardless of the infirmity of any of the individual grounds, unless *all* of them are overturned. So the government has searched again and again for a way to forcibly medicate this nutjob, and they’ve finally found one that avoids the protection ordered by the Ninth Circuit. Loughner will be medicated until the jury wont be able to see how crazy he might have been. And then they’ll execute him. Sent from my iPhone.”

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11 COMMENTS

  1. A very effective post on Laughner (I happen to agree about the forcible medication), but ending it with “sent from my iPhone” gives it an unexpectedly dark postmodern poignancy.

  2. I am of three minds on this case:

    1) I believe he should be medicated if under medication he is better to comprehend what he did and what is happening to him today.

    2) I believe the jury should (maybe via video) see how he is unmedicated and supposedly he was on that day so hopefully they consider the cicumstances

    3) What do you do long term with people who can commit these types of crimes while off their meds? Sadly, there are probably many like this who without their meds may hurt themselves or others.

  3. I do not know, but would Laughner have been institutionalized 30 years ago before the practice of deinstitutionalizing took effect?
    I know I am in the minority here, but the actions of the justice system dealing with the mentally I’ll is one of the reasons I am against the death penalty.

  4. Loughner will be medicated until the jury wont be able to see how crazy he might have been. And then they’ll execute him.

    He’s a danger to himself and others, so medication is appropriate. F^ck him.

    I don’t know about AZ law, but around these-here parts, the question is whether Loughner knew and understood the nature and consequences of his actions or knew that they were wrong when he did the acts. If the same definition of legal insanity applies in AZ, it is a very low threshold for the prosecution and a very high one for Loughner. He could be foaming at the mouth and still be legally sane. He could be nuts now and sane then, or vice versa. If there are any AZ attorneys out there, I’d like to know whether AZ is a “product” jurisdiction or follows the M’Naghten rule.

    The end game for the defense is to have this joker committed, so the defense needs Loughner’s personality to crumble completely in order to cheat justice.

  5. This fool is pure evil and deserves to get the chair. I don’t care if he understands that murdering innocent people is “BAD”, because if he is that out of it then he should be excuted or commited for the rest of his miserable life. I’m not against the death penalty, but I feel he would suffer a great deal more if he were to spend the rest of his life alone in a cell.

  6. So they will make the psycho lucid enough for a show trial? Presumably to make us feel “safe” or “confident in the System” again? To demonstrate some narrative power or moral authority?

  7. Well if he only shot plebeians nobody would make a fuss. MSM outlets went berserk because a liberal patrician took a bullet.

    So he’ll probably get life in a loony bin or a federal rape tank, errrr, penitentiary. But we’ll have to endure eye-rolling lectures from MSM talking heads before it happens.

    Personally, I could care less about his fate one way or the other. Rather ephemeral, actually.

  8. My opinion on the matter is Bias, as a Parole Officer who supervises the Mentally Ill. The courts ordered that he be medicated so that he can better understand what he did and why he’s on trial. In the end, I don’t think he should get the death penalty, after all he was not sane when he murdered those innocent people. But he should be confined for the rest of his life, whether committed to a mental institute for the criminally insane (think Arkham) or to the Psych ward at a prison. As we already know, unmediated, he’s far too dangerous and should not be released back into the community.

  9. he was not sane when he murdered those innocent people

    Was he legally insane? I can’t say, but if he understood the nature and consequences of his actions, he was legally sane even if he was drooling like a baby with a teething ring. Was he mentally ill? Certainly, but that’s not the standard for legal insanity.

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