In court, a not-guilty plea and an odd grin

PHOENIX - His hands and feet shackled, Jared Lee Loughner on Monday shuffled into a special courtroom in the federal courthouse here to answer charges he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during a shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people.

He was beaming.

Loughner, 22, continued to flash an incongruous grin throughout the otherwise routine nine-minute arraignment.

He sat down and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He glanced at the domed room, normally used for naturalization ceremonies or other special events, and his smile got even broader. When his defense attorney, Judy Clarke, whispered something to him. Loughner chortled.

Clarke asked U.S. District Judge Larry Burns to enter a not-guilty plea for her client. Burns recorded Loughner as pleading not guilty. Loughner stared straight ahead and kept smiling.

A grand jury has indicted Loughner on charges of attempting to kill Giffords (D., Ariz.) and two of her aides Jan. 8 during a routine public-outreach appearance by the congresswoman at a Tucson shopping center.

More federal charges are expected later for the killings of one of Giffords' staffers, Gabe Zimmerman, and the presiding judge of the federal courthouse in Tucson, John Roll. Those charges could make Loughner subject to the death penalty.

Monday's hearing was Loughner's second court appearance since the attack. In a mug shot released during his previous appearance, he sported a shaved head and deep smile. Some of his hair has grown back since then.

On Monday he wore glasses, an orange jumpsuit and canvas sneakers.

All Arizona judges have recused themselves from the case. Legal observers expect the case to ultimately pivot on an insanity defense. Numerous witnesses say they saw Loughner fire at Giffords.

Loughner has left behind a trail of disjointed writings, and numerous friends and acquaintances have said they believed he was mentally unstable.

Burns asked Clarke if her client's state of mind enabled him to understand the charges and her job representing him.

"We are not raising that issue at this time," said Clarke, a veteran defense attorney who also represented Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph, who bombed a park at the Atlanta Olympics.

Clarke said she did not object to a motion by federal prosecutors to move later hearings back to Tucson, although legal observers expect her to eventually try to move the trial out of state.

Prosecutors said they had turned over to Clarke 45 discs filled with material taken from Loughner's computer and 250 interviews with witnesses.

Then Burns adjourned the hearing, and U.S. marshals led Loughner back to his cell.

The U.S. attorney in Phoenix, Dennis Burke, had said in a statement Wednesday that the government had to indict Loughner within 30 days of his arrest and that to indict him on charges that potentially carry the death penalty - for the alleged killings of the federal judge and a Giffords aide - required a "more deliberate and thorough process."

State prosecutors in Pima County, Ariz., where the shooting took place, have said they are researching what charges to bring and how to coordinate those with the federal case.

Burns scheduled a status conference for March 9 and did not set a trial date.

Invoking the memories of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, each felled by an assassin's bullets, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday urged Congress to make sure the system for background checks on firearms purchases includes the names of everyone prohibited from buying weapons and closes loopholes in sales checks.

"We cannot wait any longer," said Bloomberg, who helped create Mayors Against Illegal Guns. "We cannot turn our backs on this national calamity

any longer."

Bloomberg was joined at City Hall by Martin Luther King 3d, as well as family and friends of those injured and killed in shootings in Tucson, Ariz., at Virginia Tech, and at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Federal law prohibits certain people, such as convicted felons, drug abusers, and the mentally ill, from being able to purchase firearms. Since 1993,

a national background-check system has been in place.

But that system is far from complete, Bloomberg said, because all the required records have not been added to it, and Congress has not provided all the funding needed to make sure that happens. For example, he said, 10 states have not submitted any mental-health records.

- Bloomberg News

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