Is Jared Loughner Crazy? Evaluating the Insanity Defense
News that the Arizona shooter researched past assassins puts his ability to press an insanity defense at risk. Gerald L. Shargel on why he may yet prove delusional—and our need for closure.
Emergency personnel move Giffords after she was shot in the head outside a shopping center January 8, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona. Inset: Jared Loughner (Photo by James Palka / Getty Images),James Palka
Last week the Washington Post broke the story: Jared Loughner's computer contained evidence that, in the days before the shootings, he had surfed Web accounts of execution by lethal injection, conditions of solitary confinement and the denouement of past assassins.
