this high-profile public defender, is the insanity defense easy to make? very, very hard. most people who use it fail. but there have been high profile successes. most famously john hinckley who tried to assassinate president reagan was found not guilty by reason of insanity. in response to that, congress tightened the law. loughner is likely to face both federal and state charges. so he would have to win twice. which seems extremely unlikely. dr. morrison, you can be schizophrenic or have some sort of mental illness, yet not be insane. absolutely. i mean, the things they need to prove and to show is that he was quite capable of planning. he was quite capable of waiting. he was quite capable of having every step that he needed in order to accomplish. so whether he was psychotic or schizophrenic or whatever, absolutely doesn t explain and
on jared loughner s car in the driveway. a warm gesture toward a man neighbors now believe is a cold-blooded killer. randi kaye, cnn, tucson, arizona. the fact is there s still so much we don t know about loughner, about his family, about how they handled their son, whether after he was kicked out of the community college they got counseling for him. but even with counseling it s very difficult for anyone to predict violence accurately. i talked about it earlier with dr. phil mcgraw. it seems there were plenty of people who crossed paths with the alleged shooter and were alarmed enough by his behavior to raise some red flags. people at the school, people in the neighborhood. do you think everything that could have been done was done in this case? well, anderson, this is a real problem. and let me kind of describe for you what the problem is. even if he had encountered professional psychologist or psychiatrist, even people that were trained to look for erratic behavior or different
just got video in to show you, jared loughner s parents leaving their home tonight. this is the first we ve seen them. that s somebody helping mrs. loughner into the car. mr. loughner is there with the dog. reporter: sir? mr. loughner, just a comment? clearly, they don t want to make any comments. their faces are covered. they said nothing to the camera crew. instead they issued a statement, though, they said, quote, there are no word that s can possibly express how we feel. they went on to say, we wish that there were so we could make you feel better. it continues, weon t understand why this happened. it may not make any difference but we wish we could change the heinous events on saturday. we care very deeply about the victims and their families, we are so very sorry for their loss.
meantime, there s growing evidence about mental instability on the part of jared loughner and growing signs that something, something might have been done to prevent saturday s attack if someone had decided to do it or even known what to do. we should point out right here at the top that jared loughner has neither been diagnosed with any mental illness nor convicted of any crime. we should also say mental illness doesn t equal violence and when it does it s usually suicidal not homicidal violence. but for some reason, people were wary of loughner. a classmate wrote to friends, quote, we have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me, she wrote. one of those whose picture you see on the news after he s come into class with an automatic weapon, she went on to say. then this from staff and faculty at pima community college. listen. this guy was mentally disturbed. he was very isolated. i was scared of what he could do. i wasn t scared of him
led to five confrontations with campus police. by september 29th he was suspended and police, campus police, delivered a letter to him at his parents home. then on the 7th of october a follow up telling loughner he may only return after obtaining a mental health clearance showing his presence at the college would not endanger himself or others. he never returned. as for the school, as far as the school was concerned, they d done their jobs. they protected their students, but what about the community beyond the campus? you see, arizona actually has a law that a lot of other states don t have that might have made it possible for the school to do something. under arizona law, the college could have called a 24-hour government-run mental health hotline with their concerns. in fact, in arizona, any person who knew jared loughner and had concerns about him could have petitioned a court to get him a psychiatric evaluation. the law s unique, only a handful of states use it. most states requir