Case in Giffords shooting likely to take years
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0
yabits
This is one time that hard-line conservatives -- who ordinarily don't look with favor it -- must be applauding the insanity defense. After all, if Loughner wasn't crazy, then it would represent a political attack on a Democrat that was planned well in advance.
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TheQuestion
That’s offensive on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. I don't even identify myself with the 'conservative' crowd but the very idea that you'd insinuate anybody in the U.S would want anything but the most fitting punishment for this crime is absolutely horrific. Only the most twisted of people could be pleased by this and when a person is that far gone terms like conservative and liberal become useless.
Some people are so blinded by bipartisan crap they stop seeing others as human beings. It's already become clear that Loughner wasn't politically motivated, at least not in any normal sense. The fact that people are still trying to pin the crime on one another or asserting that the other 'side' is thankful for it is disgusting.
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yabits
You would do well to re-read the post. Nobody suggested that anyone was thankful for the crime. This is your gross misreading of it.
The point was being thankful of and supportive for the insanity defense, something conservatives have traditionally tended to be extremely critical of.
I don't believe anyone has heard enough to have the final word on that. Was Loughner out of his gourd 100% of the time? Doubtful, since he had to have enough wits about him to be able to purchase the weapon and ammunition. He had enough sense to know how to track down his specific target -- a US representative.
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smithinjapan
The case shouldn't be wrapped up any faster than it normally would, and I think it's GOOD he'll have a while to reflect in the klink while he awaits a trial with what's more than likely going to be a nasty outcome (for him).
0
TheQuestion
And I doubt that highly. Nobody I know or have heard on television has given me any impression other than the expressed desire to see the man receive the most severe punishment available.
The fact that he is using the insanity defense is due to the fact that he has no other option save pleading guilty and putting himself at the mercy of the court, and considering one of his victims was a child I think his lawyer knows there's not much mercy going around for him. Nobody is happy about the insanity defense being used because it means it will take that much longer to finish all of this.
Everybody I've heard seems convinced that he had planned his crime in advanced.
Being crazy and acting crazy are two completely different things. Killers from serial killers to genocidal dictators are perfectly capable of going through life, crazy as hell, but appearing perfectly lucid.
That only serves to prove that he was solely fixated on Giffords, for what reason one can only guess. From everything that’s been presented the man jumped around on his political views like, well, a madman ranging from being apathetic towards politics too believing in mind control.
Though perhaps I should clarify, that Loughner wasn't politically motivated in any sane sense. Though it should be noted that simply being mentally ill, as Loughner clearly is, does not constitute an insanity defense. The only thing he has going for him with such a defense would be the chance to prove diminished capacity but even that is suspect.
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atamant
I re-read it. It is highly obvious what you were suggesting and it is rather offensive.
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yabits
Oh, come on. If Loughner can be blamed for having the lucidness for knowing what he was doing was wrong, he should be able to provide an explanation of why he was doing it.
Then you have just gone a long way towards making his case for him. I just don't happen to believe he would have targeted Gifford's Republican opponent or Giffords, had Giffords lost the November election, based on the fact that he purchased the weapon in late November. It was Giffords role as a member of Congress whom he thought was unfit that seemed to spur him on.
If the killer believes that what he is doing is absolutely right, then he can no longer tell right from wrong. If that is so, then the case is nearly identical to the one of John Hinckley, who didn't go after Reagan because of his politics, but because Reagan was a prominent public figure whose shooting would make Hinckley an "historical figure" and so impress the woman that Hinckley obsessed over.
If it should come out that he went after Giffords because he believed she represented a political element that was either a danger or highly offensive to him, then Loughner was less like Hinckley and more like Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan.
0
skipthesong
I really hope the insanity plea is thrown out...
0
WilliB
Why do they need to build a "case" against a guy who clearly was above cuckoo´s nest?
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sailwind
If I was his lawyer and wanted to prove that he was totally insane, I'd use the "Palin's cross hairs map beamed crazed homicidal thoughts into his brain" defense. That ought to convince twelve jurors he is a complete loon.
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yabits
Really? Then that would give more creedence to the claim that the attack was a targeted political assassination attempt, and not some random act of violence. The fact that Loughner started firing randomly into the crowd indicates to me that he's crazy.
It couldn't be more off the wall than the defense that a diet of Hostess Twinkies caused a conservative assemblyman to target and kill two liberal politicians in San Francisco in the late 70s.
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TheQuestion
No, it could be simple as he wanted to kill her. Then he bought a gun, did a quick search of where she would be speaking, and went there. A crazy person is capable of planning, their reasoning for wanting to kill someone is irrelevant to an insanity defense. Most of what's been presented shows that he targeted Giffords because of his anger about her not being able to answer some illogical question he posed to her at a similar rally.
You keep assuming that mental illness means a valid insanity defense, it doesn't. The insanity defense is only applicable if the defendant is proven to lack control over their actions at the time of commiting the crime, nobody thinks the defense is credible given the length of time that went into his preperation.
I can't make a case for insanity if it doesn't exist. It's clear that he did plan, largely clear that he did so for his own warped reasons, and that he was in control of himself when he did it.
There is absolutely no evidence about that. What we do have, through observations of people close to Loughner, is that he was becoming increasingly erratic and was seemingly fixated on Giffords for not responding to his question. Fit or unfit didn't seem to factor into this, he was angry, she was at a rally, he had an opportunity, and he took it. Why you keep trying to add conventional political spin to this is what I find insulting because there is none.
Whatever politics Loughner believed in they were so twisted and incomprehensible as to be inapplicable to either of today’s major moving forces. He was an outlier, a nut, and a killer, nothing more.
Because the case highlighted the obvious flaw in the judicial system several states abolished the insanity defense and the thing was rewritten as a whole to avoid similar successful defenses in the future. If Hinckley was tried in today’s court systems he would have been found guilty so your comparison is moot.
And I'm saying that's highly likely. But your attempt to place him in line with conventional U.S politics is flawed as his political ideology fails to mirror any accepted movement within the country.
That's what I've been trying to tell you. It was targeted, nobody doubts that it was targeted, nobody supports the insanity defense as you assert. It's merely the only option he has, it will fail, but his lawyers will try their hardest to prove diminished capacity. Not full fledged insanity which is nearly impossible given what’s known.
That only proves he's a vindictive, dare I say evil, murderer. Maybe he just wanted to create chaos or saw Giffords supporters as equally deserving of death, I can't fathom how that person thinks. But Giffords was obviously targeted. We don't, as you assert, know why she was targeted but she was. This was a planned crime, the insanity defense will be thrown out, and only those few close to him will regret seeing him get the death penalty.
0
kyushujoe
@TheQuestion
No, I will too, and so will several other anti-death penalty folks who contribute regularly to this site.
You yourself refer to him as both a "nut" and "evil". If you can't see the contradiction in your own view then whatever else you say becomes pretty much irrelevant.
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TheQuestion
Ah yes, pick a point and disreguard the entierty of the arguement. Lovely. A person is responcible for their choices, if one kills one should be killed. I don't see execution as murder, merely the system rectifying an imbalance.
0
arrestpaul
The so-called "insanity defense" is based on whether or not Loughner was capable of knowing "right from wrong", on the most basic level, at the time of his crime. Simply put, did Loughner know that shooting Giffords and the others would cause injury and even death. If the answer is yes, and that appears to be the case based on his pre-planning of the event, then any "insanity defense" is an act of desperation presented by his attorney.
"Pre-existing mental illness" does NOT mean that Loughner was LEGALLY insane.
0
yabits
And that is the sentence by which your entire argument unravels itself. I do not place Loughner in line with conventional politics. Quite the contrary. In my view, conventional politics in the USA does not advocate "second amendment remedies," or wanting constituents to be "armed and dangerous," or the sentiment if "ballots don't work then bullets will," or "they shot the wrong Lincoln."
I see those sentiments from the Tea Party faction -- which often takes the form of death threats -- as having left conventional politics far behind. And that was more what Loughner was in line with.
Yes, all it takes is one contradiction to turn the logic of an entire argument upside-down.
This is the loony, unconventional mindset of today's modern right-wingers: They claim that Loughner's act was insane (and not political) in order to detach and absolve themselves from it, but claim out of the other side of their mouths that he should be denied the insanity defense.
0
arrestpaul
Your rabid idology doesn't allow you to see the difference between what is said in the "court of public opinion" versus what is LEGALLY allowed in a "courtroom".
Did Loughner know that what he was doing was wrong? Yes, he did. Was he LEGALLY insane at the time of his crime? No, he was not.
0
ppayne
Of course this case will take years to play out. Can't have it in the papers, in, say, 2012 when Palin is trying to win the nomination. Mark my words, there will be a cone of silence lowered over all of this in 2012.
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TheQuestion
Again you attempt to classify Loughner with a political movement he showed absolutely now involvement in. He wasn't in line with anything judging from his actions, youtube videos, and his selected booklist I can say with some certainty that he is one of a kind.
It's not a contradiction. I don't see the execution of a murderer as murder. I don't go around killing people I disagree with, I don't go around killing anybody. Loughner has been convicted of murder, he took someones life without consent, and has proven himself nothing but a danger to himself and others.
Thanks for categorizing me, really appreciate it. Must be easier to criticize others when they're all fit into one neat little box labeled "not like me".
Being mentally ill and having a valid insanity defense are not the same thing. I've said that over and over so I'll say it again. Being mentally ill and having a valid insanity defense are not the same thing. Being mentally ill means that he displays aberrant behavior and a disregard for accepted social norms. Having an insanity defense would require him to not be in control of his actions. From what we know he was in control of his actions, so he does not have a valid insanity defense.
0
yabits
The root motivation behind the above words is that of one who wants to find the justification to execute people who are mentally ill, if and when their illness causes them to "lose control" of their actions. And, apparently, without regard to the possibility that their illness is in fact controlling their actions.
The very thing that we count on to guide us to right and wrong -- our minds -- was the very thing that Loughner could not count on.
the "system" of thinking that wants to see Loughner executed is very much the same system that made it possible for him to obtain the weapons he did in the first place.
0
TheQuestion
He hasn't been diagnosed with anything, the only reason I use the term mentally ill is to illustrate the fact that his behavior is deviant.
It could be argued that anybody that could justify killing another human could be classified as mentally ill. Were that so most people I know, myself included, could be considered as such. My, and other people's, standars are merely much higher as to what would justify such an act.
You seem to be under the impression that just because we don't understand his motivation he must have a condition that forced him to act in such a way. He had a reason to kill her that doesn't make sense to us but makes perfect sense to him, he made preperation, and he acted and, in the process, killed several others near Giffords.
Right and wrong are almost as subjective as my use as the word 'evil'. Right and wrong are determined by the society we live in, a perfectly reasonable person in their own mind may display socially unacceptable behavior without ever percieving it as wrong. That is part of the reason a persons perceptions of right and wrong are not used as a justification for the insanity defense. There are certain circumstances in which I could kill another and wouldn't feel in the wrong in the least bit and I doubt I would have a valid insanity defense.
If he had no felony convictions and was never diagnosed with a mental illness then there was no reason not to sell him a firearm. No linking 'system' appears here. My belief he should be executed stems from my views on equitable exchange, very basic, very cut and dry, and very efficient. I view long jail sentences as cruel and unusual while corporal punishment serve as an effective and potentially efficient solution if handled correctly. My view on the subject is not socially accepted and may be viewed largely as 'wrong' yet I am not classified as mentally ill. Judging from my lifestyle and how I conduct myself socially and in the workplace I may even be seen as significantly more stable psychologically than a majority of people.
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