UPDATE, MAY 25, 1:02 P.M.: A federal judge just ruled Jared Lee Loughner is incompetent to stand trial for January's shooting spree in Tuscon that killed six and injured 12, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona).
Loughner will be sent to a federal facility for up to four months in a bid to restore his competency, reports the Washington Post.
He was apparently competent enough to plead not guilty to the charges against him.
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ORIGINAL POST, JAN. 16, 8:41 A.M.: Federal law-enforcement officials reportedly say the trial of Tuscon mass-shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner will be moved to San Diego due to extensive pretrial publicity in Arizona.
San
Diego would take the case because it is the closest federal judicial
district to Arizona's. Loughner's attorney is also based in San Diego.
All the Arizona judges recused themselves because among those fatally
shot was Chief Judge John M. Roll. San Diego-based federal Judge Larry A. Burns has been appointed to hear the case.
Arizona's new chief federal judge, Roslyn O. Silver, will make the final decision
about any venue change, but one law-enforcement official reportedly says, “It's
going to happen. It's just a matter of time.”
Besides Roll, five others were killed in the Jan. 8 shooting that also seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona).
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.