Judge refuses to halt Jared Loughner’s forcible medication
Posted by Web Producer: Marissa Pasquet
SAN DIEGO, Cailf. (AP/KGUN9-TV) – Jared Loughner, the man accused of killing six and wounding 13 in a mass shooting, is on suicide watch and will continue to be forcibly medicated.
Loughner's condition was the subject of intense discussion in a three-hour federal-court hearing Friday that covered a range of issues, including attempts to restore Loughner to mental competency and defense requests to videotape his clinical sessions.
A federal judge says he'll allow prison doctors to continue forcibly medicating the man accused in the deadly Arizona shooting rampage that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns' ruling follows a request by Jared Lee Loughner's defense team to halt the pychotropic medications.
Burns says he doesn't want to second-guess a July 18 decision by prison doctors in Springfield, Mo., that Loughner's condition significantly deteriorated in the three weeks after an appeals court halted medication.
Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges in the Jan. 8 shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, at a meet-and-greet event held by the congresswoman outside a Tucson grocery store.
Loughner has been at the Missouri prison since late May after mental health experts determined he suffers from schizophrenia. Burns ruled him mentally unfit to stand trial.
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