Justice for Maldonado from a thoughtful jury

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: October 3rd, 2007 01:20 AM (PDT)

Those words – spoken to a 911 dispatcher – didn’t come from a man who was incapable of forming an intent to commit a crime. In fact, overwhelming evidence indicated that Dominick S. Maldonado, then 20, knew exactly what he was doing two years ago when he armed himself with a military-style rifle and went gunning for human beings.

When he was finished shooting up the Tacoma Mall, he’d injured seven and left one of them paralyzed for life.

A Western State Hospital psychiatrist testifying for the prosecution in the recent trial said Maldonado may suffer from bipolar disorder. That’s easy to believe. But bipolar disorder simply produces high and low moods; it doesn’t compel anyone to carefully lay plans to open fire on shoppers in a crowded mall.

The question wasn’t whether Maldonado was mentally ill. It was: Did he intend to commit the crime? And the psychiatrist, who’d examined Maldonado, said he’d found “absolutely no reason to suspect that he was unable to form intent.”

Little wonder that the jury returned Tuesday with 15 convictions on 15 charges, ranging from attempted second-degree murder to assault to unlawful possession of a firearm.

This jury wasn’t simply a rubber stamp for the prosecution. It had clearly weighed the case thoughtfully, reducing a first-degree attempted murder charge to second-degree, and two of eight first-degree assault charges to second-degree assault.

With 13 of his convictions aggravated by his use of firearms, Maldonado faces a very long time in prison.

It’s always a shame when a man this young squanders the rest of his life with criminal acts. Sometimes there are even grounds for sympathy.

But not in this case. Maldonado revealed a monster within himself when he terrorized so many people and placed so many within a hair’s breadth of death. Random angles of trajectory and ricochets were the only things that spared the lives of innocent shoppers that day.

Fortunately, no one was actually killed. But Maldonado deserves no credit for that lucky turn of fate.

Originally published: October 3rd, 2007 01:20 AM (PDT)