Even if that is found to be true, the lawyers for
Mr. Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout
who has been charged in the Tucson shootings,
may find it difficult to mount a successful insanity
defense.
The rules regarding such a legal strategy were
tightened over the years in the wake of the
verdict for John W. Hinckley Jr., who was found
not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981
assassination attempt on President Ronald
Reagan. The insanity argument is now seldom
successful, legal experts said.
What is more likely, they say, is that Mr.
Loughner ’s lawyers will use any mental health
problems they find to stave off the death penalty,
if he should go to trial and be convicted.
His lawyer, Judy Clarke, is likely to begin a far-
ranging investigation of his life and family history,
going back several generations to learn as much
as possible about his origins, the environment in
which he grew up and how he has functioned in
society, said David I. Bruck, who worked with
Ms. Clarke in the defense of Susan Smith, the
South Carolina woman who drowned her two
young sons in 1994 and who received a life
sentence.
Ms. Clarke “will present a case which is focused,
grounded in the facts, thorough and heartfelt,”
said Mr. Bruck, a veteran death-penalty lawyer
and a professor at Washington and Lee
University in Lexington, Va. “She won’t try to sell
what she wouldn’t buy. She’s going to find this
man’s story, and once she’s found it, she’s going
to be confident about telling it to a jury.”
But just where Ms. Clarke will tell that story —
and before how many juries — is unclear.
The defense could ask that Mr. Loughner’s case
be moved from Arizona out of concern that
potential jurors might be influenced by news
accounts.
Mr. Loughner (pronounced LOF-ner) may also
have to be defended in separate trials brought by
federal and state prosecutors, who are both likely
to seek the death penalty.
The federal government has charged Mr.
Loughner in the killings of two federal employees
— Judge John M. Roll, the chief federal judge for
Arizona, and Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide to
Representative Gabrielle Giffords — and the Pima
County attorney, Barbara LaWall, has said she will
“ pursue charges on behalf of the nonfederal
victims.”
Her office has been researching the issue of
whether it can proceed at the same time as the
federal prosecutors, or whether the state ’s case
will have to wait until the United States attorney’s
office has finished its work.
“I think initially there’ll be some confusion as to
who’s going to go first, and how fast they are
going to go,” said Rory Little, a former Justice
Department official in the Clinton administration
who teaches at the Hastings College of the Law in
San Francisco.
“I would guess that you’re having some pretty
intense discussions now between the federal
government and the state side, and it wouldn’t
surprise me to see the case divided up,” he said.
Either way, federal and state prosecutors would
have two opportunities to seek the death penalty
against Mr. Loughner if they chose to do so. That
occurred in the case stemming from the 1995
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people,
including infants and children in a day care center.
One defendant, Timothy J. McVeigh, received the
death penalty at his federal trial, but a second,
Terry L. Nichols, did not.
Mr. Nichols was tried again, on state charges, in
McAlester, Okla. He was again spared execution.
Beth A. Wilkinson, a member of the federal
prosecution team in the Oklahoma City case, said
of the Tucson shootings: “In a crime like this, it’s
also very important to recognize the state’s
interest in prosecuting murder and attempted
murder of their citizens. The vast majority of
murder cases are prosecuted by state
authorities. ”
Neither the Justice Department nor the Pima
County attorney ’s office have said if it would
pursue the death penalty against Mr. Loughner.
One of Ms. Clarke’s critical early steps will be to
argue against any federal death-penalty case
through a written submission and in meetings
with federal prosecutors in Arizona and with the
Justice Department ’s Capital Case Committee in
Washington. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
will have the final say.
Aitan D. Goelman, who also was involved in the
federal prosecution of the Oklahoma City case,
said he doubted that an effort to block a death-
penalty prosecution would prevail. “These kinds
of cases are essentially the reason we have the
federal death penalty, ” he said.
The federal complaint against Mr. Loughner
charges him with the murders of Judge Roll and
Mr. Zimmerman, along with the attempted
murders of Ms. Giffords, who was struck in the
head but survived, and of two of her staff
members, Pamela Simon and Ronald Barber,
who were both wounded and were expected to
recover.
One complication is that Mr. Loughner’s lawyers
can only pursue the insanity defense if the
defendant approves, said Stephen J. Morse, a
professor of law and psychiatry at the University
of Pennsylvania.
“It cannot be imposed on a defendant over his
objection,” Professor Morse said.
He said that lawyers in federal court tend to
regard the insanity plea as “a defense of last
resort, because juries are skeptical of claims that a
defendant was not responsible for his actions. ”
Still, he said, given early accounts of the evidence
that has surfaced in the Tucson case — that Mr.
Loughner appears to have carefully planned his
attack on Ms. Giffords — his only chance might
be to invoke such a defense.
“Based on the early information,” Professor
Morse said, “I would be surprised if he didn’t,
because he seems to have no other defense as
far as I can tell. ”
Source: Http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12legal.html
Mr. Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout
who has been charged in the Tucson shootings,
may find it difficult to mount a successful insanity
defense.
The rules regarding such a legal strategy were
tightened over the years in the wake of the
verdict for John W. Hinckley Jr., who was found
not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981
assassination attempt on President Ronald
Reagan. The insanity argument is now seldom
successful, legal experts said.
What is more likely, they say, is that Mr.
Loughner ’s lawyers will use any mental health
problems they find to stave off the death penalty,
if he should go to trial and be convicted.
His lawyer, Judy Clarke, is likely to begin a far-
ranging investigation of his life and family history,
going back several generations to learn as much
as possible about his origins, the environment in
which he grew up and how he has functioned in
society, said David I. Bruck, who worked with
Ms. Clarke in the defense of Susan Smith, the
South Carolina woman who drowned her two
young sons in 1994 and who received a life
sentence.
Ms. Clarke “will present a case which is focused,
grounded in the facts, thorough and heartfelt,”
said Mr. Bruck, a veteran death-penalty lawyer
and a professor at Washington and Lee
University in Lexington, Va. “She won’t try to sell
what she wouldn’t buy. She’s going to find this
man’s story, and once she’s found it, she’s going
to be confident about telling it to a jury.”
But just where Ms. Clarke will tell that story —
and before how many juries — is unclear.
The defense could ask that Mr. Loughner’s case
be moved from Arizona out of concern that
potential jurors might be influenced by news
accounts.
Mr. Loughner (pronounced LOF-ner) may also
have to be defended in separate trials brought by
federal and state prosecutors, who are both likely
to seek the death penalty.
The federal government has charged Mr.
Loughner in the killings of two federal employees
— Judge John M. Roll, the chief federal judge for
Arizona, and Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide to
Representative Gabrielle Giffords — and the Pima
County attorney, Barbara LaWall, has said she will
“ pursue charges on behalf of the nonfederal
victims.”
Her office has been researching the issue of
whether it can proceed at the same time as the
federal prosecutors, or whether the state ’s case
will have to wait until the United States attorney’s
office has finished its work.
“I think initially there’ll be some confusion as to
who’s going to go first, and how fast they are
going to go,” said Rory Little, a former Justice
Department official in the Clinton administration
who teaches at the Hastings College of the Law in
San Francisco.
“I would guess that you’re having some pretty
intense discussions now between the federal
government and the state side, and it wouldn’t
surprise me to see the case divided up,” he said.
Either way, federal and state prosecutors would
have two opportunities to seek the death penalty
against Mr. Loughner if they chose to do so. That
occurred in the case stemming from the 1995
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people,
including infants and children in a day care center.
One defendant, Timothy J. McVeigh, received the
death penalty at his federal trial, but a second,
Terry L. Nichols, did not.
Mr. Nichols was tried again, on state charges, in
McAlester, Okla. He was again spared execution.
Beth A. Wilkinson, a member of the federal
prosecution team in the Oklahoma City case, said
of the Tucson shootings: “In a crime like this, it’s
also very important to recognize the state’s
interest in prosecuting murder and attempted
murder of their citizens. The vast majority of
murder cases are prosecuted by state
authorities. ”
Neither the Justice Department nor the Pima
County attorney ’s office have said if it would
pursue the death penalty against Mr. Loughner.
One of Ms. Clarke’s critical early steps will be to
argue against any federal death-penalty case
through a written submission and in meetings
with federal prosecutors in Arizona and with the
Justice Department ’s Capital Case Committee in
Washington. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
will have the final say.
Aitan D. Goelman, who also was involved in the
federal prosecution of the Oklahoma City case,
said he doubted that an effort to block a death-
penalty prosecution would prevail. “These kinds
of cases are essentially the reason we have the
federal death penalty, ” he said.
The federal complaint against Mr. Loughner
charges him with the murders of Judge Roll and
Mr. Zimmerman, along with the attempted
murders of Ms. Giffords, who was struck in the
head but survived, and of two of her staff
members, Pamela Simon and Ronald Barber,
who were both wounded and were expected to
recover.
One complication is that Mr. Loughner’s lawyers
can only pursue the insanity defense if the
defendant approves, said Stephen J. Morse, a
professor of law and psychiatry at the University
of Pennsylvania.
“It cannot be imposed on a defendant over his
objection,” Professor Morse said.
He said that lawyers in federal court tend to
regard the insanity plea as “a defense of last
resort, because juries are skeptical of claims that a
defendant was not responsible for his actions. ”
Still, he said, given early accounts of the evidence
that has surfaced in the Tucson case — that Mr.
Loughner appears to have carefully planned his
attack on Ms. Giffords — his only chance might
be to invoke such a defense.
“Based on the early information,” Professor
Morse said, “I would be surprised if he didn’t,
because he seems to have no other defense as
far as I can tell. ”
Source: Http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12legal.html
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