CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Defense attorney Kristen Nelson delivered a bombshell on the courtroom Wednesday morning: The defense was calling for a mistrial.
The news came before the jury reentered the courtroom, as the prosecution was preparing to screen more of the 22 hours of sanity examination interviews conducted by psychiatrist Dr. William Reid.
“The jury has now heard James Holmes talk about how he shot at the people who tried to run away,” said Nelson. “That he wanted to kill people … that he hand a handgun he may have used on an employee taking out the trash before the shooting. The admission creates the risk for unfair prejudice.”
Judge Samour denied the request as “meritless,” arguing Nelson should have made her claim before the court had watched five days of video. Then he said, “Why are you making (this argument) now? It doesn’t make sense to make it now. Save it for an appeal.”
Former Adams County Prosecutor Bob Grant said the timing was strategic.
“It’s guerilla tactics,” he said. “They’re trying to create a record that they can then use for an appeal. That was an argument that could have and should have been made when they argued that the tape was inadmissible.”
Grant continued to explain that they teach tactics like this in order to help the appeals process.
“They’ve created the mistrial,” Grant said. The process likely doesn’t make sense to jurors, but if James Holmes is found sane and therefore guilty of killing 12 and injuring 70 on July 20, 2012, moves like this critical for the appeals process. It’s even more pertinent for the defense if the jury ultimately sentences Holmes to death, as is the prosecution’s goal.
But defense attorney David Beller says there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes.
“(The judge) may have made them look bad, but the reality is the defense only cares about what happens in front of the jury and the court of appeals,” said Beller.
“They are far too professional to care about what they look like in front of the judge or other attorneys,” he said. “Their sole responsibility is protecting Mr. Holmes; the opinion of the judge is secondary.”
Continued evaluation
After Samour denied the mistrial, the court played the final piece of yesterday’s interview between Reid and the defendant. They then played footage from an evaluation that took place three weeks after the initial set of interviews, in the jailhouse. All interviews occurred between July and August of 2014.
Reid asked the defendant how he felt right after the shooting and at his first court appearance. He discussed why Holmes sent burned money to ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton along with his notebook containing all his plans, and why he stopped seeing Dr. Fenton in the first place. To that, the shooter didn’t have a solid answer.
“It was odd,” Dr. Reid told the prosecution today, referencing how the defendant wasn’t clear on why he sent the burned bills. He also said that many people let themselves go before committing a crime. Holmes continued to work out twice a week leading up to the shooting.
Reid also found it significant that the defendant’s “human capital” values were arbitrary, because that suggests that he did not believe himself to be controlled by a higher power.
“He’s aware that what he’s doing is a bad thing,” Reid said to the prosecution. “The information available both in the record and in the video implies that he was not suffering from an acute psychosis.”
People suffering from acute psychosis also very often exhibit disorganized thinking. Holmes’ planning  process for the shooting was highly organized.
The beginning of the end
Dr. Reid focused part of his interview on school, specifically the preliminary examination the defendant took in June of 2012. He said he put his “mission” — the shooting — ahead of school, but didn’t drop out in order to avoid suspicion.
The shooter knew he failed his preliminary exam when he walked out that day, but said it didn’t matter to him. At that point he knew he’d probably either be killed or locked up, which he had been sure of since he bought his second weapon, the shotgun.
The next segment reviewed the shooter’s notebook of writings from his early jail time. From this piece of the interview, the court learned that the shooter believes in a sort of “dreamless sleep,” which is both the afterlife and a similar “before life” state. Another topic in that category was “ultraception” (he represented by his sign of a circle with an infinity sign and the number 1) which he defined as the solution to all problems, included those within the “dreamless sleep.”
Reid spent a lot of time asking about what the shooting would’ve been like from the victims’ point of view, and asking the shooter to imagine how he would’ve felt. Holmes still hasn’t said he’s sorry.
Holmes compared his “human capital” system to the value of a dollar: it’s not worth anything, but we attribute value to it. We attribute values to ourselves. Reid asked him how it would work if he was sentenced the death penalty. Who gets his worth?
The defendant told Dr. Reid that he was depressed before killings, and thought there was a 50-50 chance the shooting would make him feel better. It didn’t relieve his depression, but he said it increased his self worth.
The defendant also said he was delusional for wanting to kill the whole world. Dr. Reid argued that he was not delusional, but that it was more of a “crazy thought.”
Lastly, the two spoke of Holmes’ family. The defendant said even though his sister doesn’t write, he’s not worried.
“I think she still values me,” he said.
Trial ended at  5 p.m. with the conclusion of another video. The prosecution will question Dr. Reid about it when court commences Thursday morning.
Editor’s note: CU News Corps will honor the victims of this tragedy with every post via this graphic.Â
