Throughout the trial, Holmes has displayed almost no reaction to individuals who took the stand. He would occasionally turn his head to watch videos of himself played on a court television, reporters noted.
Advertisement
District Attorney George Brauchler will then make a rebuttal case, taking up to a day. Holmes told a psychiatrist years after his gunshots killed 12 people and injured 70 in a crowded Colorado movie theater that he doesnt like to talk with people, even his mother and father.
Their star expert witness, Raquel Gur, director of the Schizophrenia Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, spent a grueling four days on the stand defending her diagnosis that Holmes was legally insane.
A severe defect in his brain prevented him from knowing right from wrong, said Gur, who once examined Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Arizona mass shooter Jared Loughner, and was also called by the White House to serve on a task force following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Holmes told Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. that he had discussed the decision with his attorneys, responding to the judge’s questions with direct “Yes” and “No” answers and swiveling slightly in his chair.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday, July 14, at 11:15 a.m. The prosecution will present first, followed by the defense and then a final rebuttal by the prosecution.
An exasperated Gur replied, “Of course, I wrote the report!”
“He was not capable of differentiating between right and wrong”, Gur said on Thursday.
Brauchler grilled Gur on leaving out a few details from her written account of her Holmes interviews. The relationship Arlene and Robert Holmes had with their son James had been strained since he was a young boy. He says it’s unlikely the jury will find Holmes not guilty by reason of insanity but that the evidence of mental illness might persuade jurors to spare his life.
Prosecutors accuse Holmes of being a cold-blooded murderer who aimed to kill all 400 people in the packed midnight premiere of a Batman film at the Century 16 cinema in Aurora, a Denver suburb.
Advertisement
Holmes’ public defenders ended their case after playing two silent surveillance videos of Holmes taken in the months following the attack.
