Connect with us on Facebook!
Subscribe.
Follow us on Twitter!
Make us your home page!
Authors, sign in!Judge Finds Jared L. Loughner, Accused in Tucson Shooting, Unfit to Stand TrialI'm not qualified to make judgment as to Jared Loughner's mental capacity or condition. However, I do make judgment that there is something wrong with our system. Too much regulation or not enough? The accounts of his activities leading up to the event, certainly, indicate he had a problem and evidence proves those problems were not addressed properly.Jared L. Loughner, accused in the Jan. 8 shooting spree that seriously injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six others dead, was ruled incompetent to stand trial by Federal Judge Larry A. Burns on Wednesday.
Before the ruling, Mr. Loughner was dragged screaming from the courtroom in Tucson after disrupting the hearing; he watched the rest of the proceedings on a monitor in a holding cell. The court heard testimony from two expert witnesses that Mr. Loughner suffered from schizophrenia.
We spend billions or even trillions of dollars trying to insure security for ourselves, in a world fraught with violence and destruction.
We fight the battles over whether we have to much invasion of privacy or not enough, at our airports. We fight over parental rights and institutional authority.
In the mean time, we fail miserably those individuals like Loughner, his family, and those he attacked. Ideology is not the answer. We need to be willing to give up a little of our personal freedom and accept a little more of our responsibility to require society accept responsibility.
Published May 25, 2011 by Ken Poland |
Permalink
| Tags:
Courts
Crime
Criminal Justice
Government
Public Policy
Comments (3)
Ken--As usual, your approach to this issue is thoughtful. From the account I read of Loughner's bizarre behavior in today's Wichita Eagle, it's obvious he's mentally ill. It's too bad that no one stepped in to help him and his family before this tragedy happened, but that seems to be the way of the world we live in. It does take a village to raise a child and it takes a village to keep us all safe by doing what needs to be done for each other.
Posted by Diane
|
May 26, 2011 10:35 AM
Posted on May 26, 2011 10:35
Ken, thank you. We so generally fail to deal adequately with mental illness (an enormous problem) that it is no wonder that we frequently miss cases when mental illness becomes dangerous.
Like you, I am not qualified to get into the particulars of the Loughner diagnosis. But I do know that untreated, and untreatable, schizophrenia rarely manifests as raving madness, such as Loughner's courtroom behavior. Instead,schizophrenics tend to be lucid and credible for weeks or months at a time, causing many people to have trouble believing what they do when in the grip of a major delusion.
Posted by Peter Tramel
|
May 27, 2011 5:40 AM
Posted on May 27, 2011 05:40
Another good post, Ken. There is always that balance between our individual needs and the needs of the community. Both you, Diane and Peter are right that we do have some responsibilities for each other as a community. One of the things is to get rid of the stigma attached to mental illness.
Posted by Angelo Lopez
|
May 27, 2011 10:22 PM
Posted on May 27, 2011 22:22