3:49 p.m. update:
CENTENNIAL | Public defender Dan King made District Attorney George Brauchler’s closing remarks for the prosecution a key part of his closing argument on behalf of his client, Aurora theater shooter James Holmes.
King began his closing speech, opting to use the courtroom’s lectern, by quoting Aldous Huxley: “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” King also eschewed Brauchler’s claims that the defense picked and chose the most-convenient facts from expert witnesses to support their insanity case, instead saying that he and his fellow lawyers offered a “whole-cloth” presentation of the evidence.
For the first 15 minutes of the defense’s closing arguments, King took exception to what he called Brauchler’s insistence on explaining Holmes’ action through the realm of logic, and that “the psychotic process” Holmes experienced around the time of the shooting explain many of the examples of “deceitful” behavior Brauchler pointed to as evidence that Holmes knew what he was doing was wrong.
“He had lost touch with reality,” King said of his client, noting that Holmes had been suffering from a mental disease for more than 10 years at the time of the shooting and that he could not control his thoughts, actions and perceptions.
“You cannot divorce the mental illness from this case or Mr. Holmes, because the mental illness caused this to happen,” King said. “Only the mental illness caused this to happen — and nothing is.
“You need to ask yourself, what does the evidence show?” King addressed the jurors. “Where’s the proof that he’s not mentally ill?”
READ: Instructions to Aurora theater shooting trial jurors from Judge Carlos Samour., Jr. (PDF).
King went on to say that he felt that Brauchler’s closing remarks — in which he rarely made mention that Holmes had any issues with mental illness — amounted to the district attorney “misconstruing the evidence, and it’s not fair to you or Mr. Holmes.”
In numerous instances, King’s pointed closing remarks referred to Brauchler as “this guy” — the same phrase used repeatedly by Brauchler during his closing argument to refer to Holmes.
3:15 p.m. update:
CENTENNIAL | Lawyers and jurors in the Aurora theater shooting trial are readying to hear closing arguments from a public defender for James Holmes Tuesday afternoon after a lengthy closing argument from Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler.
Brauchler’s closing argument was repeatedly interrupted by objections from public defender Dan King, which — regardless of Judge Carlos Samour Jr.’s ruling on their merits — visibly perturbed many victims and family members in the courtroom.
In some cases, family members of victims of the Aurora theater shooting audibly scoffed when King objected to various statements made in Brauchler’s closing speech. At another point, Brauchler requested an additional two minutes for rebuttal; when defense attorneys for Holmes objected, a voice from elsewhere in the courtroom dismissively sounded out, “Of course you do.”
Once Brauchler’s closing argument was complete, many victims and family members who had been in the courtroom for the emotional speech left the building, not waiting for court to resume for King’s closing remarks.
2:35 p.m. update:
CENTENNIAL | District Attorney George Brauchler sounded a somber tone in beginning his closing argument in the Aurora theater shooting trial of James Holmes, harkening to the coming three-year anniversary of the massacre at the Aurora Century 16 theater, where 12 were killed and 70 others wounded.
Brauchler repeatedly referred to “steel-penetrator rounds” — among more than 700 rounds of ammunition brought to the theater on July 20, 2012 — used by Holmes in his quest to shoot “anything and everything he could.” Brauchler pointed to Holmes operating with “universal malice” in his movements throughout Theater 9, calling it a “kill box” multiple times.
Brauchler then became more animated in discussing the law itself and the threshold any defense must meet in order to prove insanity as a defense, as Holmes pleaded at the trial’s beginning. Brauchler pointedly noted that diagnoses and psychiatrist reports for times before and after the shooting did not matter — only whether Holmes was criminally insane on July 19 and 20, 2012.
Brauchler went on to say that there was a degree of deception in which Holmes shielded his thoughts about violence from his parents in the spring before dropping out of school and purchasing ammunition and other items to be later used in the theater shooting — part of a departure from societal norms that define morality.
“There’s a cautionary tale: Do not confuse mental disease or defect with moral obliquity,” Brauchler said, also noting that individual diagnoses of varying mental illnesses — including schizophrenia, schizotypal disorders and schizoaffective disorders — are not alone enough under Colorado law to prove criminal insanity as a defense.
1:30 p.m. update:
CENTENNIAL | Judge Carlos Samour, Jr., weighed in on several objections made by James Holmes’ public defender over the content of a PowerPoint presentation slated to be used by prosecutors during Tuesday’s closing arguments in the trial of the Aurora theater shooter.
In some instances, Samour sustained objections raised by public defender Dan King relating to slides in District Attorney George Brauchler’s PowerPoint that claimed that Holmes was deceiving people, which Samour labeled “problematic.”
“I don’t think it’s accurate to say that he deceives everyone,” Samour said, referring to the slide in question, which was disallowed.
Other slides in Brauchler’s presentation were allowed to remain over the defense’s objections despite King’s protestations that the slides were injurious to the defendant beyond what was discussed at trial. Samour overruled the objections and, with minor changes, said the slides were “not gratuitous shots on the defendant’s character.”
Brauchler began his closing argument shortly before 1:30 p.m., which is expected to last at least 90 minutes.
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CENTENNIAL | After days of talks of jury instructions after both sides rested their cases in the trial of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes, there was still legal wrangling to be done Tuesday before closing arguments.
Public defender Dan King objected to a number of slides included in District Attorney George Brauchler’s PowerPoint presentation for his closing arguments, noting that many of the slides presented statements that were not made by Holmes at any time, but rather subjective statements made by Brauchler.
King said that slides that included phrases such as, “Look how smart I am,” were not part of any statement or writing by Holmes or the expert witnesses who interviewed and diagnosed his mental state, but rather Brauchler pontificating on his view of Holmes’ mindset.
Brauchler shrugged off the objections.
“There are no low blows here,” he said. “There are no cheap shots.”
The objections delayed the start of closing arguments, which had been tentatively set to begin around 11 a.m. Tuesday. The court broke just before 11:30 a.m. so that Judge Carlos Samour, Jr., could review the PowerPoint slides in question ahead of ruling on their inclusion in the closing arguments later in the day.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 70 others in the July 20, 2012, shooting at the Aurora Century 16 theater during the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.” He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.