Novel New Indictment Hits Loughner with 49 Counts, Including Murder Charge re Chief Judge Roll

A federal grand jury in Arizona has issued a sweeping new superseding indictment against suspect Jared Lee Loughner, who is accused in a January supermarket parking lot shooting rampage in Tucson. It left six dead, including Chief U.S. District Judge John Roll, and more than a dozen injured, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The new indictment includes a murder charge concerning Roll’s death, as expected. But it also applies a novel legal argument under civil rights law in charging Loughner, 22, with crimes not only against federal figures killed and injured at the Safeway meet-and-greet event hosted by Giffords but against those who simply attended. In doing so, prosecutors are…