The lawyers for accused Colorado theater shooter James Holmes are arguing today that their client is insane, in an attempt to keep him alive and out of prison. In the years before the shooting, two psychiatrists had assessed Holmes as sane; however, the defense claims Holmes was in the grips of a psychotic episode related to schizophrenia when he allegedly killed 12 and injured 70 others during a July 2012 screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. If Holmes was unable to tell right from wrong, he would be rendered legally insane in the state of Colorado. Such a verdict would place him in a state mental hospital indefinitely, rather than have him face a life sentence or the death penalty.
The defense's first witness was a nurse who reported that Holmes ran headfirst into walls in his Arapahoe County Jail cell in November 2012. When pressed if Holmes otherwise displayed out-of-the-ordinary behavior, the nurse replied no. Holmes' psychiatrist Lynne Fenton is also expected to be called to the stand by the defense after having earlier reported a growing concern about her patient's "paranoid delusions" and "psychotic-level thinking" in the months before the attack.
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