2:40 p.m. update
AURORA | A few days after he was booked into the Arapahoe County Jail in July 2012, an inmate passed James Holmes a note asking for his autograph, a jail deputy testified Tuesday.
Deputy Jacob Lofland said an inmate cleaning a common area in the medical unit found a note from another inmate asking Holmes to draw something and autograph it July 24.
Lofland said jailers reviewed surveillance video from the area and saw Holmes find the letter.
“It appeared that he read the note then set it back down in the same place and did nothing else with it,” he said.
The inmate who sent the note was reprimanded, Lofland said, but it didn’t appear Holmes responded to the note.
Lofland said that in those first days after the shooting, Holmes watched the news every night in jail.
Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Triska, who escorted Holmes to his first court appearance after the shooting. Triska said Holmes seemed dazed as deputies put a bulletproof vest on him before going to court.
Holmes’ lawyers showed the jury a video of that first appearance, which showed Holmes — his hair still dyed bright orange — appearing dazed and lethargic in court.
Triska testified earlier in the trial as a prosecution witness. That day, prosecutors showed a video of Holmes in a holding cell in 2012 tampering with his shackles.
Noon update
AURORA | Jurors in the Aurora theater shooting trial are hearing more testimony Tuesday about the accused gunman’s apparent mental breakdown a few months after the shootings.
Lawyers for James Holmes called a jail nurse and a paramedic who saw Holmes in November 2012 when he was rushed from the jail to Denver Health medical Center.
Sandra Paggen, the jail nurse, said Holmes was acting strange at the jail on Nov. 11, 2012. At one point, he smashed two paper water cups and put his sandwich meat between them. He then ate it like a sandwich, paper cups and all.
While Holmes was unresponsive for long stretches that day, when paramedics arrived with a stretcher, he got on it with no help.
“I wasn’t expecting him to get up,” she said.
Jeremiah Leadam, the paramedic who drove Holmes to the hospital, said Holmes immediately underwent a CAT scan when he got to the hospital.
On the way there, Leadam said he asked Holmes to repeat the phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” to see if Holmes could say it without slurring his words.
Holmes repeated the phrase with no trouble, Leadam said, but kept repeating it over and over on the ride to the hospital.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 70 more during the July 2012 attack. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The trial is in its 40th day and is scheduled to continue through mid-July.