AURORA | District Attorney George Brauchler hammered away at a defense psychiatrist Friday, arguing the doctor who deemed James Holmes insane failed to adequately evaluate the accused theater shooter.
Brauchler said Jonathan Woodcock, a psychiatrist who evaluated Holmes four days after the July 2012 shooting, didn’t review the notebook Holmes mailed to his therapist or even know there were recent medical tests he could have reviewed earlier this year.
Woodcock was given a chance to interview Holmes again in March 2015, but he opted to complete his report before he interviewed Holmes again. When he did meet Holmes, it was for one hour.
“In that one hour — five days after you determined he was insane — you again never explored with him the preparation for the crime and the actual crime itself,” Brauchler said. Woodcock agreed, saying he felt he had reviewed all the information necessary before meeting with Holmes.
Brauchler also said Woodcock didn’t review the entire 22-hour recorded interview with another doctor and instead only read that doctor’s report.
“I chose not to take the time to do those,” Woodcock said. He later added: “No one has reviewed 100,000 pages.”
Brauchler said there was no way for Woodcock to know that, but said that he never bothered to call any of the other doctors, even though those doctors called him to make their reports.
Brauchler said Woodcock failed to respond to a jail psychiatrist who wanted his insight on how Holmes should be medicated. The doctor said Holmes wouldn’t talk to him and he asked Woodcock for advice, but Woodcock declined, Brauchler said.
Woodcock said he told the jail psychiatrist what his initial impression was, but didn’t feel comfortable sharing more information because he wasn’t treating Holmes at the time.
“I was not in a position to prescribe or tell (the jail doctor) what to do,” he said.
Brauchler asked Woodcock if he opted not to call the jail doctor back because that would allow Holmes’ mental illness to go untreated and “manifest in a more dramatic way,” but the defense objected to that question and Judge Carlos Samour, Jr., agreed.
In a July 12, 2012, email to his parents, Holmes denied having plans for much of anything in the coming weeks.
While Holmes had already purchased tickets for the July 20 midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” amassed an arsenal and laid out detailed plans for the attack, Woodcock said he didn’t believe Holmes had committed to the attack at the time of that email.
“I don’t think he knew at this time whether or when it would occur with any certainty,” he said.
Brauchler disagreed.
“By July the 12th, he knew unequivocally that he would be going to theater 9 at the Century 16 theater and trying to murder everyone in it,” he said.
Brauchler also said Woodcock failed to discuss Holmes’ efforts to hide his crimes.
Woodcock agreed but noted that after the crime, Holmes put no effort into getting away.
Still, Brauchler said Holmes gave inconsistent answers about what happened after the shooting. Prosecutors have said he told one doctor he opted not to leave because his body armor made driving difficult, and he told another he was simply finished.
Brauchler said Woodcock was in a unique position to bring some clarity to that question, but the doctor opted not to ask Holmes about his plans after the shooting.
Woodcock said he didn’t feel the need to ask, in part because Holmes’ responses would not have been reliable considering the time that had passed and his mental state at the time of the crime.
“That’s the whole problem with reconstructing someone’s psychotic mind, four days later or two years later,” he said.
Brauchler said Holmes donned gloves, waited until night fell and wore a mask during the attack, all things others doctors say point to sanity. But Woodcock said there was no research that shows any of that correlates with mental illness.
Brauchler said that despite Woodcock’s insistence that Holmes’ delusions “controlled” his actions, Holmes was still planning and his behavior was organized.
Woodcock said organization and planning are not evidence of sanity.
“That’s the dilemma here,” he said. “He demonstrates a great deal of organizational behavior at this time, but that behavior is driven by these delusional impulses.”
Woodcock said Holmes knew killing was wrong, but the delusions had him convinced the victims would appreciate what he did.
“The delusions were telling him that it was right and that if these people understood, they would think it was right also,” he said.
Woodcock said the fact that the bombs at Holmes’ apartment failed were evidence that Holmes’ mind was deteriorating at the time of the attack. With his science background, the bomb setup should have been relatively easy for Holmes, Woodcock said.
Brauchler scoffed at that and almost laughingly asked: “Because it didn’t work, he had a cognitive deficit?”
Woodcock said that was correct.
Woodcock, who said Holmes was insane at the time of the shootings, said Holmes’ thinking was irrational at the time, but during aggressive questioning, District Attorney George Brauchler tried to poke holes in that argument.
While Woodcock insisted Holmes was irrational at the time of the shooting, Brauchler said that was obvious based solely on the crime.
“It would be hard to come up with a rational reason to kill 12 people in a theater in a community like Aurora, period,” Brauchler said.
Throughout the questioning Woodcock regularly gave answers with statements beyond what Brauchler asked. Near the end of his testimony, Judge Carlos Samour Jr. seemed frustrated by the answers and told Woodcock twice to only answer the question he was asked.
Jurors seemed to pay close attention to Woodcock’s testimony and submitted more than a dozen questions for him. One juror asked Woodcock whether someone could be delusional but not psychotic and another asked about whether he knew Holmes had circled July 20 on a calendar in his apartment before the shooting.
Another juror seemed angry with Woodcock and asked if from an “ethical standpoint” he felt it was ok that he was “picking and choosing” from other doctors’ work when he made his determination on Holmes’ sanity. Samour opted not to allow that question to be asked in open court.
Samour said Friday the trial is scheduled to end July 13.
Samour said he is confident in the July 13 date, but noted if the defense’s case goes beyond July 8 — the day the defense has said they will rest — or if prosecutors call more rebuttal witnesses than planned, closing arguments could come after July 13.
“This is just our best estimate and that’s the best we can do,” Samour said.
If jurors convict Holmes, the sentencing phase of the trial would start July 20 — the third anniversary of the attack — assuming jurors are done deliberating within a few days, Samour said.
That phase of the trial will likely take about a month based on the estimates the two sides gave Friday.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 70 more during the July 2012 rampage at a packed Aurora movie theater. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The trial is in recess until Monday morning.