November 12, 2024

Man Charged With Killing 5 in Annapolis Newsroom Uses Insanity Defense

This finding, which would ultimately be made by a judge or jury, is separate from a guilty or not guilty verdict.

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Jarrod W. Ramos is pleading not guilty and not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.CreditAnne Arundel Police, via Associated Press

Mr. Ramos could be found guilty in the shooting but not criminally responsible. If that is the case, he could be sent to a state psychiatric facility instead of prison. Health officials could periodically re-evaluate the level of his confinement.

A finding of not criminally responsible is Maryland’s version of what is commonly referred to as the insanity defense.

The shooting’s impact continues to reverberate following a particularly deadly year for journalists. Earlier this month, employees of The Capital Gazette received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board. Dana Canedy, the awards’ administrator, cited The Capital Gazette’s “unflagging commitment to covering news at a time of unspeakable grief.”

In December, Time magazine honored the Capital Gazette staff, among other journalists, as its 2018 person of the year.

Before the shooting, Mr. Ramos had a long-running feud with The Capital, the daily newspaper of the Capital Gazette community newspaper chain, over a 2011 column that detailed his harassment of a former high school classmate.

Mr. Ramos sued the owners of The Capital in 2012, claiming the article that described his behavior was defamatory. He had also posted tweets, laced with profanities, that railed against newspaper employees.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/capital-gazette-shooting-suspect.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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