July 15th, 2021 by WCBC Radio
WBAL reports a jury on Thursday found the gunman who killed five people at a Maryland newspaper criminally responsible, rejecting defense attorneys’ mental illness arguments. The jury of eight men and four women found that Jarrod Ramos could understand the criminality of his actions and conform his conduct to the requirements of law when he attacked the Capital Gazette newsroom in 2018. The jury’s finding means Ramos, 41, will be sentenced to prison, not a maximum-security mental health facility. Prosecutors are seeking five life sentences without the possibility of parole. Ramos already had pleaded guilty to all 23 counts against him in 2019 but pleaded not criminally responsible — Maryland’s version of an insanity plea. The second phase of his trial was delayed multiple times, most recently because of the pandemic. It was largely a battle between mental health experts called by defense attorneys and prosecutors.
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