On May 25th the Washington Post reported that Jared Loughner was
judged not competent to stand trial:
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that shooting suspect Jared Lee
Loughner is mentally unfit to stand trial for the Jan. 8 rampage
in Tucson that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six,
citing expert testimony that Loughner is schizophrenic and shows a
paranoid distrust of his own defense attorneys.
Facing an agitated Loughner in a Phoenix courtroom, U.S. District
Judge Larry A. Burns remanded him to a federal facility in
Springfield, Mo., where he will receive treatment aimed at
restoring his competency. The judge ordered that Loughner be
treated for up to four months, and if he is then deemed to be
competent, the case against him could resume. If not, he could
remain in treatment.
Against his defense attorney’s protests, Loughner is being
forcibly medicated as Slate reported today:
A federal judged on Wednesday ruled that doctors can force Jared
Lee Loughner to take antipsychotic drugs in an effort to make him
fit to stand trial for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and
18 others.
“I defer to medical doctors,” U.S. District Judge Larry Burns
said at an emergency hearing requested by Loughner’s lawyers,
according to the Los Angeles Times. “I have no reason to disagree
with doctors. I didn’t go to medical school.”
The purpose of the medication is simply to reduce the most glaring
symptoms of schizophrenia so that Loughner can comport himself
“normally” in a courtroom. When you stop and think about this, you
realize that the forces of law and order are far more irrational
than the defendant. He, at least, has an excuse: a chemical
imbalance in the brain. They have none except a desire to take
vengeance against a person who was “not capable of distinguishing
between right and wrong” during a psychotic break, to use the
wording that was invoked in the past in insanity pleas.
When you administer anti-psychotic medication to a schizophrenic,
it does not mean that the disease goes into some kind of
remission, to use an analogy with chemotherapy and cancer. The
person remains deeply disturbed, subject to what specialists call
a “diminished affect”, inappropriate responses (laughing at a sad
story and crying at a joke), etc. The likelihood that patients
will do violence to others or themselves is diminished when they
are under medication. But all medical experts will acknowledge
that when someone like Jared Loughner kills, it is not done
willfully. Furthermore, punishing someone like him is not likely
to dissuade other unmedicated schizophrenics to “behave
themselves”. In bourgeois society, punishment is often explained
as a need to deter future crimes. But putting a schizophrenic
behind bars is simply barbaric.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/some-thoughts-on-jared-loughner-and-henry-cockburn/
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