Tucson Suspect Jared Loughner Due in Ariz. Court

Updated 2:20 p.m. ET

A 22-year-old man described as a social outcast with wild beliefs steeped in mistrust faces a federal court hearing on charges he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson shooting rampage that left six people dead.

Special Section: Tragedy in Tucson

Public defenders are asking that the attorney who defended Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski defend Jared Loughner, who makes his first court appearance Monday at 2 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EST).

(Scroll down to watch a report on this story)

Authorities weren't saying late Sunday where Loughner was being held, and officials were working to appoint an attorney for him. Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender in Arizona, said they're asking that San Diego attorney Judy Clarke be appointed.

CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr reports from Washington that there is no indication that anyone, including Loughner's parents, knew of his alleged plans for Saturday's shootings.

The FBI has interviewed a former roommate of Loughner's who said that sometime between Christmas and New Year's the 22-year-old showed him the gun that he had purchased, Orr reports. That made the ex-roommate uncomfortable, but Loughner made no threats and that meeting was not reported to anyone else.

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Investigators have found no evidence that Loughner has any connection to any hate or fringe group, Orr reports. The FBI continues to comb through computer files, notebooks and phone records to learn more about him.

Hours before Loughner's hearing was scheduled to begin, a motion was filed with the court for Clarke and at least two others to represent the 22-year-old. The other lawyers are Mark Fleming and Reuben Cahn, executive director of the Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc.

Read the Motion (PDF)

Jon Sands, the federal public defender for Arizona, wrote in the motion that qualified local public defenders either declined to take the case or found conflicts of interest in representing Loughner and therefore must step aside.

"Given the gravity of the charges, the possibility of the death penalty, and our discussions with the U.S. Attorney's office concerning the charges, we believe that death-qualified counsel must be appointed," Sands says in the motion.

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CNN reported that Clarke had been appointed to represent Loughner, but that report could not be immediately confirmed.

Clarke, a former federal public defender in San Diego and Spokane, Wash., is now in private practice in San Diego. She served on teams that defended several notorious criminal suspects, including 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, McVeigh, Kaczynski, Atlanta Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her toddlers in 1994.

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Loughner was not cooperating and told ABC's "Good Morning America" the suspect had said "not a word" to investigators. Dupnik said authorities were all but certain Loughner acted alone, saying "he's a typical troubled individual who's a loner."

The hearing in Phoenix comes just a few hours after President Obama led a shocked and saddened nation in a moment of silence for the victims and their families. Mr. Obama observed the moment of silence at 11 a.m. EST with White House staff on the South Lawn.

Obama Leads Moment of Silence for Tucson Victims

As authorities filed the charges against Loughner, they alleged he scrawled on an envelope the words "my assassination" and "Giffords" sometime before he took a cab to a shopping center where the congresswoman was meeting with constituents Saturday morning.

A federal judge, a congressional aide and a young girl were among the six people killed, while Giffords and 13 others were injured in the bursts of gunfire outside a Tucson supermarket.

Victims of the Tucson Shooting Rampage

Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. More charges are expected.

The counts involving the murder of federal employees, while on duty, could carry the death penalty.

Discoveries at Loughner's home in southern Arizona, where he lived with his parents in a middle-class neighborhood lined with desert landscaping and palm trees, have provided few answers to what motivated him.

Court papers filed with the charges said he had previous contact with Giffords. The documents said he had received a letter from the Democratic lawmaker in which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007.

Investigators carrying out a search warrant at his parents' home in a middle-class neighborhood found an envelope in a safe with the words "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be his signature.

Neighbors said Loughner kept to himself and was often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a hooded sweat shirt and listening to his iPod.

Jared Loughner's Alienation from Old Friends

Comments from friends and former classmates bolstered by Loughner's own Internet postings have painted a picture of a social outcast with almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.

One defense attorney said that if he were representing Loughner he would ask for the trial to be moved out of Tucson.

"You do not want to be in the same venue where someone killed ... a judge and a 9-year-old who was born on 9/11, for heaven's sake," Phoenix defense attorney Adrian Fontes told the Arizona Republic.

[UpLateAgain]

Loughner turns out to be a left-wing, dope-smoking, flag-burning, atheist, truther, whose favorite literature includes Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and Animal Farm. Yep, I guess Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Sarah palin, and Sean Hannity ought to be locked up for causing this.

Every time there is an incident like this, and the press and those on the left jump immediately on the "right-wing activist/ Tea party" bandwagon, they lose even more credibility (if that's possible), since it always seems to turn out to be either a Muslim or a Marxist. I swear to God, hard-core leftists are just complete fools.

[DerkDiggler]

Its sad when someone needs to be a government official to be missed, in America today government, lawyers and judges are killing our loved ones and no one cares. CBS did a recent story here http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/23/eveningnews/main7179542.shtml?tag=nl.rSINGLE
About a woman who lost everything, she however is lucky as many of these seniors are murdered.

It's sad that when a federal judge is shot dead we make a big deal about it. Yet judges like this one are killing, stealing, lying and abusing thousands of senior citizens. Are we mourning for these seniors? What do their families feel?

A death is a death and a loss is a loss, please don't ignore a life due to someone being in congress or being a judge. Congressmen are suppose to stop what is going on in America, yet they've ignored the Elder Abuse that goes on everywhere. http://stopguardianabuse.org/ has documented hundreds of cases.

Senior are being harvested, murdered, drugged and all their possessions sold, liquidated and stolen.

The family of the congress woman who was shot, I feel for you, please feel for others that are not as well known as she is.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8618-500172_162-7230376.html?assetTypeId=30&messageId=10266265&tag=contentMain;contentBody#ixzz1Af7vI69C

[p94932]

put jared in a cell with a big mandingo and left him get popped in the keister and see if that will make him talk!!!

[mary-miami]

Congresswoman Giffords is a Democrat who read the First Amendment in Congress. Shooting her was an attack on our freedom of speech, press, religion and right to protest. The First Amendment contains all the freedoms and rights that make a country "free". The person who shot the Congresswoman was not just a "nut", he was a right wing terrorist. That is what the tea party extremists are all about. Tea party and republican conservatives want to control this country in a dictatorship where only the very wealthy have any rights. This guy Loughner, has all the makings of Nazi. It is said that he prefered reading Hitler's essays; Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" where he stated that he hated Democrats and various kinds of people. Hitler burned books, censored the press and speech. This is what the Tea Party represents. Conservative Republicans are not far behind because they don't care about the working class. They crashed our economy and now they still don't have solutions other than going back to what caused the problem to begin with. When the conservatives get together to talk about "the good old days", they typically refer to the 1950's...that's when racism was the norm and women were treated as second class citizens. Ever since the GOP lost the Presidential election, they have been uncooperative and rebellious. They have never tried to work as a team to fix the nation's financial woes. The economy is now improving because the Democrats have done what needed to be done to help the American people. Democrats have always been peace loving, diplomatic and defend everyone's right to be free. A vote for the Democrats is a vote for freedom.

[shirt001]

Mary-miami there's no proof what party this nut was associated with. Obama is repsonsible for our $14 trillion debt, the economy is not getting better, Obama want's our free market, capatalist gov to collapse so he can implement his socialzed gov. He shoved health care down our throat to break this country financially. He's following in his father and mothers footsteps, they were both socialist. The Tea Party is trying to prevent and protect us from socialism.

[maistir]

Officials in the colleges and in law enforcement failed to do their jobs thoroughly; too much trouble to take him into custody and evaluate him. That led to a failure of the background check when he bought a gun -- his name apparently wasn't in the system.

As others have asked, where will the money come from to pay attorneys' costs? From his parents? If so, I trust the victims will take civil actions against them for everything they failed to do to protect the public from their son.

[schoollord]

maistir...nothing he did in the past warranted taking him into custody even some threats he made. The college was not responsible for his behavior. He was an adult with no mental illness history. He was just an oddball like many others in the US. The gun laws here in the US are so lax that he could have bought a gun legally even if he was deemed mentally ill by buying it from a private dealer at a gun show where buyers are not required to pass a background check.

[p94932]

what needs to be done is get one of the baddest torture specialists from a mexican cartel hire him and turn him loose on this POS.

[cyclingpete]

I HATE WHAT THIS COUNTRY HAS BECOME. AND IT WILL GET WORSE. Isn't there a country I can move to thats not full of ****?

[p94932]

NO, if you want to be an ass wipe in an other country go ahead and move and see how that works out for ya! America is the best place to be, and we know it aint perfect!

[skodillac]

swiss,sweden,norway,germany,austria

[tallturtle]

Yes this is a sad situation and senseless . How ever if the washinton leaders and the lobbyist don't quit playing *** for tat with the taxes and money not earned by them but the american citizens . I would not be surprised if more assasinatons were attempted by people who like this crazy nut just come from no where thinking he or they are doing the world or the US a favor.May many people are getting fed up with washington elite acting like children and throwing the tax money away on projects outside the US. Time will tell.

[schoollord]

We have a major gun-related tragedy every day in the US. Everyday around 84 Americans are killed with guns in the US, another hundred or so are wounded, and thousands of crimes are committed with guns. Studies have shown that areas with more households with guns have more homicides and suicides so there is a direct corelation between the number of guns and homicides and suicides. Studies also say that in most cases citizens defending themselves with firearms do so against unarmed criminals or those armed with weapons other than firearms which prompted experts to conclude that in most of those cases the role of the gun in stopping the crimes was unclear.

[p94932]

irregardless, americans aint giving up the guns dude! its just part of the society we live in.

[UpLateAgain]

Studies show that Mexico has among the most restrictive gun laws in the world... and more gun related crime per capita than any other nation in the world. Go figure...

[veenbeen]

Really ticks me off that he killed that little girl.

www.anon-tools.it.tc

[robertsonwf]

I believe that this guy should get shot himself! I understand there is the bill of rights and the constitution, etc, etc, but if you are dumb enough to pick up a gun and go on a random killing spree well, I strongly believe you are no longer a U.S. Citizen and you are now considered a terrorist!! So no bill of rights or any document protecting you applies anymore and the government is just being retarded allowing this guy to be represented by someone that defended other killers, so I believe that this attorney should be classified the same and they should be considered a Terrorist and a threat to the U.S. (THE PEOPLE). To end this, I would like to send my prayers to those who have lost in this tragedy.

[ge556]

It is important for the rule of law to apply always, even when your emotions run high. Sometimes, probably not this time, police get the wrong person. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. I hope that we always let the courts decide, rather than someone with your mindset.
Also, I think we should have the chance to find out whether he had accomplices, etc. Haste makes waste.

TruthTeller

[p94932]

I agree, you commit a crime against a government official you should have your legal rights rescinded!