The final days of testimony have presented jurors with the pivotal question they’ll have to decide – whether to believe psychiatrists who say Holmes was sane, or whether to believe psychiatrists who say he was insane when he opened fire in a crowded movie theater in 2012. He was told he would be cross-examined if he chose to testify and that the jury could ask questions, with the judge’s approval.
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A third, Dr Jonathan Woodcock, was enlisted by Holmes’ defense team and testified in late June that Holmes was insane. The defense is wrapping up their argument that Holmes is not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defense’s star expert witness, Raquel Gur, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Schizophrenia Research Center, said this week that schizophrenia meant Holmes was not in control of his actions.
One of the defense psychiatrists, Dr. Raquel Gur, told jurors that Holmes’ schizophrenia and delusions overwhelmed him.
The defense is expected to show about 25 minutes of additional video in court Friday before resting.
She said she had no doubt Holmes’ severe psychosis, combined with his “gifted” level of intelligence, his struggles adapting to graduate school, and the break-up with his first girlfriend, forged a “perfect storm” that led to the massacre.
Prosecutors argued Holmes was sane and should be executed. But Brauchler, who is seeking the death penalty, suggested Gur came to a hasty conclusion about Holmes’ mind.
But prosecutors hammered at Gur’s report, accusing her over more than two days of cross-examination of everything from bad grammar to being errant by not asking certain follow-up questions or recording her interviews.
District Attorney George Brauchler will then make a rebuttal case, taking up to a day.
The prosecutor also asked repeatedly why parts of Gur’s account of her sessions with the gunman were not written down. Samour determined that Holmes’ decision not to testify was made “voluntarily and intelligently”.
Jurors will decide whose opinions they trust more when they retreat to a conference room inside the brick-and-glass Arapahoe County Courthouse and begin working their way through 166 counts against Holmes, mostly murder and attempted murder.
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Holmes admits to the shootings but has said he was suffering “a psychotic episode” at the time. He did, but Gur initially said that he had not.
