Court: No forced medication for Giffords shooting suspect

PHOENIX — A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld its stay against forcibly medicating Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner and ordered the prosecution and defense attorneys to prepare for a hearing on the matter at the end of August.

At issue are a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that specify when prisoners can be forced to take medications for psychiatric reasons. One requires only an administrative hearing if the inmate is a danger to himself and others; the other demands a court hearing if the inmate is being forcibly medicated to be restored to competency to stand trial.
Loughner was medicated, ostensibly for dangerousness, after a hearing in front of prison staff, but his attorneys alleged that the federal Bureau of Prisons was making an "end run" around the rules because its warden and psychological evaluators stated that they needed to treat the underlying psychiatric condition with the medication.
In the months after the January shootings, which killed six people and wounded 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the 22-year-old Loughner was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and sent to a federal facility in Springfield, Mo., for psychiatric restoration.
His attorneys immediately asked to be advised if he was to be medicated. Restoration to competency often involves medication, especially for schizophrenics.
Citing the two Supreme Court decisions, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ruled that there would only be a hearing if the medication were for restoration, not for dangerousness. And in fact, unbeknownst to the court or the opposing lawyers, the Bureau of Prisons determined that Loughner was dangerous and began medicating him on June 22. Burns upheld the decision, however.
Loughner's attorneys, Judy Clarke and Reuben Camper Cahn, appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which stopped the forced medication pending review of the case. The attorneys debated the question in California on July 7. A three-judge panel ruled to keep the stay in place on Tuesday.
One sticking point is that the Supreme Court case that allows for a mere administrative hearing pertained to a prison inmate who had already been convicted. The second case, which required a court hearing, pertained to a "pre-trial detainee," like Loughner.
"Because Loughner had not been convicted of a crime, he is presumptively innocent and therefore entitled to greater constitutional protections than a convicted inmate," Tuesday's ruling said.
But, at this point, it narrowly applies to whether the preliminary injunction remains in place.
Now both sides must argue their cases before the appeals judges determine which type of hearing Loughner must undergo.

Loughner attorneys seek halt to forced medication

Lawyers for the accused gunman charged with wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting rampage told a federal appeals court on Thursday that forcing him to take anti-psychotic drugs could cause him irreparable harm.

But 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski expressed skepticism during the hearing, which was held in Pasadena, a few miles from Los Angeles, saying of the defense team's argument, "I don't buy it."
The three-judge panel adjourned after 90 minutes without issuing a ruling and gave no indication how long it would deliberate before deciding whether to lift an earlier court order that temporarily bars prison officials from medicating Jared Loughner against his will.
Loughner did not attend the hearing. He remains held at a hospital for federal prisoners in Missouri after a lower-court judge in May declared him incompetent to stand trial on charges he killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Giffords, at a public event in Tucson, Arizona.
The 22-year-old college dropout, described by his own lawyers as "gravely mentally ill," has since been undergoing psychiatric evaluation to determine whether his ability to understand court proceedings against him can be restored.
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns denied an emergency petition filed by Loughner's attorneys in June seeking to bar prison officials from forcibly medicating him. Burns said he would defer to the judgment of doctors treating Loughner.
But the appeals court days ago ordered a halt to the involuntary medication while it reviewed the matter.
Federal prosecutor Christina Canabillis argued on Thursday that doctors were prompted to medicate Loughner against his will due to a number of outbursts in which he threw chairs in his cell and spat at one of his own attorneys. Such behavior clearly poses a danger to the medical personnel trying to determine his competency, she said.
But defense lawyer Reuben Cahn argued that forcing anti-psychotic drugs on Loughner amounted to a "serious invasion on personal liberty" resulting in "irreparable damage." Prison officials coerced Loughner by threatening to strap him down and inject him if he refused to take pills prescribed by his doctors, Cahn said.
"Nothing can reverse the injury done to him," Cahn said.
Kozinski expressed doubt about permanent harm, comparing the situation to a person taking pain medication.
Loughner is accused of opening fire on Giffords and a crowd of bystanders outside a Tucson supermarket on January 8. Six victims were killed and 13 were wounded, including Giffords, who is still recovering from a gunshot to the head.
He pleaded not guilty in March to 49 charges stemming from the shooting rampage at the "Congress on Your Corner" event, including multiple counts of first-degree murder.
At the competency hearing in May, Judge Burns cited the conclusions of two medical experts that Loughner suffers from schizophrenia, disordered thinking and delusions.

Photos show Congresswoman Giffords

HOUSTON | Images of a smiling Rep. Gabrielle Giffords were posted Sunday on her Facebook page, photos that show her with shorter hair but few signs that she suffered a gunshot wound in the head. The photos were taken May 17 outside the rehabilitation facility where Giffords has been undergoing treatment since she was wounded in the Jan. 8 attack in Tucson, Ariz. Since then, access to the Arizona congresswoman has been tightly controlled. Until Sunday, no clear images had been released. Giffords spokesman

C.J. Karamargin said staff members released the photos Sunday to help satisfy “intense interest in the congresswoman’s appearance.” The timing coincides with plans to release Giffords from the hospital later this month or in early July. But the photos give little indication of Giffords’ cognitive abilities — what, for example, her speech is like after being shot in the left side of the head. The images also provide no hints as to when, or if, she will be able to resume her job. Pia Carusone, Giffords’ chief of staff, has indicated that while the congresswoman is able to speak and walk, she remains a shadow of her former self.

Giffords shooting suspect deemed incompetent to stand trial

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Lee Loughner was incompetent to stand trial, all but ending, for now, legal proceedings in the January shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. After studying reports from two mental health experts who examined the 22-year-old defendant, Judge Larry A.

Burns ordered that Loughner be kept in custody and stopped any federal trial unless Loughner were to be rehabilitated later, would be able to understand the charges against him and assist in his own defense. The charges carry the potential of the death penalty.

The ruling also appears to put on hold any state trial against Loughner.

He was ordered removed from the courtroom after an outburst. Reporters heard him shout: "She died in front of me," "Thank you for the freak show" and, "You're treasonous." A staff psychologist at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., and a forensic psychiatrist in San Diego both agreed that Loughner at this time is unfit mentally to stand trial. Calling the shuttle: For students at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson, it was an unusual time to come to school: Sunday night. But it was an even more unusual school activity: making a long distance call 216 miles straight up to the space shuttle Endeavour. The educational event was set up by Endeavour commander Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shootings that killed six people, including 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. Christina-Taylor went to Mesa Verde.

Feds alerted to Gabrielle Giffords shooter three months before Tucson massacre

The Tucson community college that booted attempted assassin Jared Lee Loughner asked federal firearms agents to check his background three months before his shooting rampage.

Hundreds of emails released by Pima Community College show school officials investigated the troubled young man in the months before he shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others in January, killing six.

They eventually suspended him, but during the weeks after the bloodbath administrators wondered if they did enough.

The emails depict a student with serious emotional problems whose strange behavior upset those around him.

In February 2010, a student emailed a writing teacher that Loughner put a knife on his desk. The teacher forwarded the complaint to an administrator and said he'd heard a similar complaint from another student.

"I think we ought to have another conversation with Jared to try to get to the bottom of this, and really at this point, I'd like to do everything that we can to have him removed from the class," teacher Steven Salmoni wrote.

"I think his presence alone is interfering with the kind of environment that I'm trying to foster in this course."

Loughner was in trouble again four months later after a math teacher said in an email that he appeared to be on drugs. School counselor DeLisa Siddall met with him the next day.

According to emails, Loughner told Siddall he was being "scammed" by his math teacher.

"He said, 'My instructor said he called a number 6 and said I call it 18.' He also asked the instructor to explain, 'How can you deny math instead of accept it?'" Siddall wrote.

Siddall told the teacher that Loughner would return to class but stop asking questions. The next day, the teacher said Loughner returned to class and was laughing inappropriately and staring at classmates with an "evil" smile.

That led campus police to recommend Dean Patricia Houston expel him, but Houston said in an email it was premature.

"It is a matter of balancing the disruptive student's right to due process with the rights of the other students in the class," Houston wrote.

More disruptions eventually prompted administrators to suspend Loughner from school. As they did, campus cops contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to look into him as a "person of interest."

Less than two weeks after the shooting, the school's director of contracts and risk management wrote an email to administrators saying the college should have done more.

"Arizona has one of the most lenient criteria for a commitment procedure which, having read the police reports, should have been initiated," Dworschak wrote. "You don't dump them."

Endeavour fueled for next-to-last shuttle launch

NASA fueled Endeavour for a Monday morning liftoff on the next-to-last flight of the space shuttle era, confident an electrical problem that grounded the mission more than two weeks ago had been fixed.

The mission commander is Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who's back for the second launch attempt.

Kelly and his five crewmates waved, gave a thumbs-up and shook their fists in the air as they headed to the launch pad in the pre-dawn hours. Liftoff was slated for 8:56 a.m.

The mood was upbeat this time around. An electrical problem halted the countdown on April 29; NASA said that trouble is behind. Meteorologists also were optimistic.

The astronauts never made it to the launch pad last time.

"Took my last shower for a few weeks," reported astronaut Mike Fincke in a tweet. "The flight docs gave a good look-over. My only issue: too much boyish enthusiasm. (no known cure)."

Added pilot Gregory Johnson in his own Twitter update: "I am really excited and charged up for this mission! Slept great."

Endeavour is bound for the International Space Station one last time before heading to retirement at a Los Angeles museum. The shuttle's experienced, all-male crew will deliver and install a $2 billion particle physics experiment during the 16-day flight, as well as spare station parts.

NASA anticipated a launch day crowd in the hundreds of thousands. Besides the Kennedy Space Center work force, as many as 45,000 guests were expected to jam the launch site. On top of that, law enforcement agencies told NASA to expect up to 500,000 spectators to jam area roads and towns.

Even more people were expected for the first launch attempt, on a convenient Friday afternoon. President Barack Obama and his family even showed up, but had to settle for a tour and a meet-and-greet with the astronauts as well as Giffords.

NASA spent the past two weeks replacing a switch box with a blown fuse as well as a suspect thermostat, and installing new wiring.

Giffords flew in Sunday from Houston, where she's undergoing rehab for a gunshot wound to the head. Her recovery has been so remarkable that doctors approved both trips to Cape Canaveral.

She was shot at a political event in Tucson, Ariz., her hometown., and nearly died.

By Sunday night, recreational vehicles and cars already were lined up along the Banana and Indian rivers. And signs outside area businesses cheered Endeavour on with messages of "godspeed" and "go."

Endeavour is the baby of NASA's shuttle fleet. It was built to replace the Challenger, lost in a 1986 launch accident. Endeavour first flew in 1992 — it ended its first mission 19 years ago Monday.

NASA is retiring its three remaining space shuttles after 30 years to concentrate on interplanetary travel. The space agency wants to hand over the business of getting crews and cargo to the space station, to private companies. At least one company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said it can get astronauts to the space station within three years of getting NASA approval.

One final mission remains, by Atlantis in July.

Shuttle trip reflects 2 journeys of resolve

The eyes of the world are beginning to focus here, on the windswept coast of eastern Florida, for Friday's launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.

For decades, the rockets of NASA have given this place its name and its identity: the Space Coast.

Here, Alan Shepard launched in 1961 and became the first American in space.

Here, Apollo 11 departed for the moon.

Here, the shuttle Challenger fell back to Earth. And after it, shuttles flew again.

Successes, tragedies and recoveries at Cape Canaveral happen on a grand scale.

So, it is the perfect setting for this launch, because on Jan. 8, this launch became an Arizona story.

On that day, a gunman walked into a political gathering outside Tucson and started shooting.

The first person shot was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: a bullet through her head at point-blank range.

Her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, is commander of the Endeavour's final mission.

Giffords became among the most recognized members of Congress; Kelly, talking about his wife at news briefings and standing next to the president at a memorial service for other victims, quickly became the most visible astronaut on duty.

The question in the days after the shooting: Would she survive?

The question in the weeks after: Would he fly?

And months later, the question became: Would she recover enough to see the launch?

The answers, one by one, were yes.

So, on Tuesday, Kelly arrived here aboard his NASA jet, ready for final launch preparations, and Giffords was soon to arrive, their shared tragedy becoming another Canaveral success story.

The dream

History already has started claiming the pieces of the shuttle program.

This mission is the Endeavour's last and will be the next-to-last mission of the 30-year shuttle program.

The Endeavour is now promised to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

The program began under President Richard Nixon, who signed the Space Transport System into reality in January 1972, while the Apollo flights were still captivating the nation.

The shuttle program, as an idea, would change spaceflight. The orbiter would launch like a rocket and return like a glider. The trips - as frequent as once every two weeks - would be affordable, reliable and safe.

The reality, like all things in space, would be far away and far more complicated.

"With respect to its original goals, the shuttle program fell well short of cost schedule and capabilities," said Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado-Boulder's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. "That is not controversial."

By anyone's count, the shuttle's costs have been far greater than expected.

NASA puts the cost per launch at about $450 million, the amount of money required for each new mission scheduled.

Another way to calculate the costs is to take all the money spent on the program since inception and divide it by the total number of launches. That, Pielke said, puts the launch costs at more than $1 billion.

The orbiter once billed as simple and reliable became so complex that its launch schedule bogged down almost immediately.

The shuttle program was designed for frequent flying, as many as 24 launches per year. But, since the first launch in 1981, there have been 133 trips into space, a rate of just over four per year.

From engine maintenance to replacing the thermal-protection tiles, preparing a shuttle for launch after landing was slower and more costly than ever anticipated.

Three decades later, NASA closes the book on the shuttle, after the Endeavour and another, final flight. The agency will return its focus to moon missions and the possibility of sending people to Mars.

At its end, the shuttle program could not accurately be called a failure.

The country's greatest achievements in space over the past 30 years have been carried into orbit in the cargo bay of a space shuttle. Without the shuttles, there would be no:

- International Space Station. It was assembled module by module as the shuttles brought new pieces.

- Hubble Space Telescope. It rode into orbit aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1990 and was repaired by another shuttle crew in 1993. Since then, it has shown scientists things previously unimaginable, peering so far into the darkness of space that scientists can now determine the rate of expansion of the universe.

"It's our 18-wheeler in the sky," astronaut Gregory Johnson said affectionately. He will pilot the Endeavour in this week's mission.

"You know, we've got that big cargo bay, we take all big stuff up with us, and we've got the cab where all the people live and operate the vehicle," he said. "It's a one-of-a-kind spacecraft."

The tragedies

Despite its achievements, the shuttle program was bound by the physics of space travel.

Escaping the bonds of gravity requires a staggering amount of fuel and a violent amount of thrust. Returning to Earth requires a harrowing trip through the atmosphere; the craft becomes blindingly hot as air molecules create friction against its skin.

Each shuttle flight brings a chance for epic failure.

And so, in time, the shuttle program came to be synonymous with tragedy.

Five shuttles were built to go into space; two have flown missions and not returned.

In 1986, the shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, in plumes of white smoke across the Florida sky.

Shuttle launches were still new at the time, and the public fascination was fresh. Aboard the Challenger was schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, who was to become the first teacher in space. A nation of schoolchildren watched as a lesson in science became a national horror.

In 2003, shuttle launches had become routine, relegated to the news briefs. Then, in the predawn hours, the Columbia streaked through the atmosphere on its return trip. Above the western U.S., something went wrong, and by the time the craft passed over Texas, it had exploded into a hail of debris.

In the face of tragedy, the shuttle program never gave up.

Congress authorized a new shuttle in 1987, one year after the Challenger disaster.

It was built at a facility in Palmdale, Calif., like all shuttles. But it was built for an express purpose: to replace the Challenger. NASA named the shuttle Endeavour.

A shooting

The shooting in January was a tragedy for Arizona on a similar scale to the shuttle disasters.

Nineteen people were shot; six of them died.

Quickly, the tragedy of the shooting became bound together with the shuttle mission. Giffords, the ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, flew to Houston for intensive recovery - Houston, where her husband, the mission commander, would continue his training.

Finally, this week, the word was official. Giffords, still in seclusion for her rehabilitation, would travel to see the launch.

A measure of how much this launch will be an Arizona story: Giffords is sure to be the most notable guest in the gallery - despite the presence of Barack Obama, the third seated president ever to attend a space launch.

For nearly four months, Kelly has balanced the demands of leading his crew with his wife's recovery.

His job as an astronaut - that is, maintain precise control, fix what breaks, preserve the mission and the life of the crew - contrasted with the realities of his wife's injury.

"I think people have a lot of control over their own destiny," he said, "but there are certain things that are outside your control, like what happened to Gabby. But I have also started to believe that maybe certain things are fated to happen, possibly. Maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe nobody knows why yet. Maybe in the years to come we'll realize that maybe, possibly, there could be some good things that could come out of this."

A mission

Such open questions will be put aside when the countdown clock on the green fields of the space center reaches 00:00:00.

"My whole thing is get the job done, make no mistakes, make sure my crew's working well. I have very little time to think about anything else," Kelly said last week as he prepared to leave Houston for Florida. A trip to space "is a sprint from the morning we wake up on launch morning until we climb out of the orbiter 16 days later."

If everything goes as planned on Friday and beyond, the Endeavour will push into the sky and out of sight within minutes. The rocket boosters will fall away, and the orbiter will soar toward the space station.

The mission will again burn a staggering amount of fuel. At every step, the crew will face the inherent chance of danger.

The Endeavour will rendezvous with the International Space Station to deploy its payload, a scientific device that could help detect the origins of the universe.

Giffords will be back in Houston by then, back to work on her own recovery. She will be waiting for her husband.

And then, the shuttle will descend, no longer as a rocket but as a glider.

The Endeavour will circle the Earth, losing speed and altitude, and touch down again on the Space Coast for the last time.

.Several close to Gabrielle Giffords to witness shuttle liftoff

The launch of the space shuttle Endeavour this week will reunite victims, family members and heroes of the Jan. 8 shooting spree near Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13.

Capt. Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will command the shuttle, which is scheduled to lift off Friday at 12:47 p.m. Arizona time from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a two-week mission to the International Space Station.

Giffords, who was shot in the head during the assassination attempt and has been recovering in Houston, wants to watch her husband blast into space.

"We're really thrilled that the congresswoman will be going, too," said Ron Barber, Giffords' district director, who is still on leave after being shot in the face and leg but will attend the launch. "I've always been an incredible fan of NASA and the space program, even as a young guy growing up. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, really, to see a launch, and to know the commander, and to be with the congresswoman who has made a really good effort to get there."

Her doctors could make a medical announcement today.

At Cape Canaveral, she would be kept away from the thousands of people who crowd the area to watch shuttle launches. She likely would be secluded even from many of NASA's other VIP guests. Among those guests will be President Barack Obama and his family, as well as another of Giffords' wounded staff members and two of the doctors who helped to save their lives.

A complete list of Giffords-related guests was not available, but other Tucson guests include:

- Ross Zimmerman, the father of Gabe Zimmerman, Giffords' 30-year-old community-outreach director who was killed in the mass shooting at the constituent event outside a Safeway grocery store.

- Pam Simon, another Giffords aide who was wounded in the attack, as well as Pia Carusone, her chief of staff, and C.J. Karamargin, her congressional spokesman.

- Drs. Peter Rhee and Randall Friese, who provided emergency medical care to Giffords and other victims at University Medical Center in Tucson.

Zimmerman, who has bonded with Giffords' Tucson staff in the months since the tragedy, said his family was invited to the launch by NASA at Kelly's request. He is paying for the trip himself.

"I've never seen a space shuttle before, so that's exciting," Zimmerman told The Arizona Republic. "But for me, it's really more about getting to spend time with the people from Gabe's office. They were very close to Gabe, and there's a lot of grief that they are dealing with relevant to his loss."

Zimmerman said his son was "extremely supportive" of Kelly's space career and "would be hugely excited about this."

Simon, who was shot twice during the massacre at the constituent event that she and Gabe Zimmerman organized, worked closely with him and was pleased to hear that his father would be at the launch.

"Gabe will be on all of our minds throughout this," Simon said. "We miss him terribly and there will be an empty place in our hearts and in the stands, but Ross has become a member of the Giffords family."

Simon and her husband, Bruce, will be making their second appearance at a NASA launch. In 2008, both were on hand to see the space shuttle Discovery take off as part of a Giffords entourage. Kelly commanded that mission as well. Simon recalled a powerful moment from that event in which Kelly, right before launch, told onlookers over the shuttle radio to "stand by for the greatest show on earth." Then the smoke started to come out, she said.

"Whether Gabby comes or not, I want to be there to support her family and cheer Mark on," Simon said.

Zimmerman and Simon were unsure whether they would be able to visit with Giffords were she to attend. Zimmerman said he would love the opportunity to say "hi" again to Obama, whom he met briefly when the president spoke at a memorial service in Tucson four days after the shooting.

"I have no idea if or when the congresswoman is going to meet with Obama and the first family," Karamargin said. "I'm not even sure if that will happen."

Rhee, UMC's trauma medical director, said he didn't foresee any medical reason that would prevent Giffords from flying from Houston to Florida and attending the takeoff. Early on after the shooting, Rhee discussed the upcoming shuttle mission with Kelly, whom he described as distraught over his wife's brain injury.

Rhee said he was pleased that the space flight is proceeding with Kelly at the helm.

"I had a feeling if he did go on the mission, that there would be a lot of public attention," said Rhee, who is hoping to attend the launch with his 16-year-old son, Michael, a student at Ironwood Ridge High School in Tucson. "I think this will be a good boost for him (Kelly), her (Giffords), the nation, Tucson and everybody."

Mental exam for Giffords shooting suspect Loughner

A judge has ordered the man charged in the January shooting rampage in Arizona to undergo a mental evaluation to see if he is competent to stand trial.

The evaluation at a specialist facility in Missouri will be filmed.

It will not examine whether Jared Lee Loughner, 22, was sane at the time of the shooting in Tucson, which left six people dead and 13 injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Mr Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges stemming from the attack.

They include killing US District Judge John Roll and Mrs Giffords' aide, Gabe Zimmerman, and attempting to kill Mrs Giffords and two other aides.

Mr Loughner is also charged with causing the deaths of four others, including a nine-year-old girl, who were not federal employees, causing injury and death to participants at a "federally provided activity", and using a gun in a crime of violence.

In total, 14 of the charges are punishable by death. However, prosecutors have not yet said if they will pursue the maximum penalty.

Mental disease or defect

Mr Loughner will travel to the Bureau of Prisons facility in Springfield, Missouri, because prosecutors had argued that his evaluation should take place at a medical referral centre that provided forensic services and had increased resources.

His lawyers had wanted the exam to be done by an expert at a prison in Arizona, as it might disrupt their relationship with him. They also wanted assurances that it would be limited to ascertaining whether their client was competent to stand trial, not whether he was sane on 8 January.

Judge Larry Burns ruled against the defence's first request, saying the relocation to Springfield was "unavoidable", but agreed with the second.

"The question at issue is whether the defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, or to assist properly in his defence."

The judge ordered that the exam be conducted no later than 29 April, and said he expected a report to be submitted by 11 May.

Three slain in Tucson rampage were shot in head

Three of the six people killed in the Jan. 8 rampage that injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) died of gunshot wounds to the head, according to autopsy records released Monday.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Larry Burns to bar the release of the records, saying that news stories about them could "taint the jury pool" and jeopardize a fair trial.

Prosecutors also told Burns that the families of five of the victims requested that the autopsy results be kept private. But the judge rejected the prosecutors' request last week and allowed their release by the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office.

The records show that Giffords aide Gabriel Zimmerman and two victims in their 70s - Phyllis Schneck and Dorwan Stoddard- died of gunshots to the head. Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green was killed by a gunshot wound to her torso, with the bullet striking her aorta, kidney, stomach and small intestine.

U.S. District Court John M. Roll was shot in the lower back, with a bullet perforating his aorta, according to the autopsy report. Dorothy Morris, also in her 70s, was killed by a bullet that pierced her heart.

Nineteen people, including Giffords, were injured in the attack outside a Tucson grocery store. The suspect in the shootings, Jared Lee Loughner, has been charged with 49 federal counts.

Loughner is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Tucson.

Chief Medical Examiner Bruce O. Parks said in a statement Monday afternoon that his office would not discuss the reports.