AURORA | James Holmes’ thoughts were well-organized and he knew his plan to shoot up a packed Aurora movie theater was wrong, a psychiatrist who interviewed him for 22 hours told jurors Wednesday.
“He was not suffering an acute psychosis,” Dr. William Reid told jurors during his fifth day of testimony in the Aurora theater shooting trial.
Reid said disorganized thoughts are a “hallmark” of psychosis, but Holmes’ meticulous planning are evidence that he was not in the midst of psychosis when he launched the attack, killing 12 and wounding 70 in July 2012.
The day’s court proceeding began with Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos Samour, Jr. scolding the defense for asking for a mistrial.
Before the jury was in the courtroom, Samour interrupted one of Holmes’ lawyers while in the process of making a motion for a mistrial, rejecting it as “untimely” and lacking in “professionalism.”
Defense attorney Kristen Nelson began making a motion for a mistrial based upon comments made by Holmes during a recorded interview that was played for the court Tuesday, claiming that his discussion of the offenses in question and the details of what happened in the theater violated her client’s constitutional rights, including right against self-incrimination.
Before Nelson could finish the formal motion for a mistrial, Judge Samour cut her off to sternly express that such a motion would not be entertained, in particular because any concerns about Dr. Reid’s recorded interviews and the content of his interview with Holmes should have been raised prior to him being called to testify and the introduction of the video in the trial.
“If you were going to object, you should have objected before he took the stand … that argument is untimely,” Samour said, who admonished Nelson further by saying “the defense was silent on the issue” before Reid testified and the video’s introduction.
Samour had already given a lengthy explanation of his reasoning for not granting the motion before even offering prosecutors the opportunity to sound off on the defense’s move.
“This is a complete surprise to us,” Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said once getting the chance to speak.
The defense attempted to say something more to the matter after Samour eventually formally rejected the motion for mistrial, but Samour quickly cut them off again to begin the day’s proceedings.
“No, we’re done. Thank you,” Samour said. “Let’s bring the jury in, please.”
The defense’s request marked the second time since Reid took the stand that they have asked for a mistrial. Lawyers for Holmes asked for another shortly after Reid started testifying after Reid said — without being asked a question about Holmes’ sanity — that he believed Holmes was sane. Samour rejected that request, too.
Once the jury took their seats and testimony started again, prosecutors continued playing the video.
During a break in the video for questioning, Reid said he believed there was a part of Holmes that didn’t want to do the shooting, but he said, as Holmes did in the videotaped interviews played for the jury, that the part of him that wanted to kill was much bigger.
Holmes also was eating regularly and hadn’t let himself go physically or given up on basic hygiene before the shooting, Reid said. People in the midst of psychosis often let themselves go in those ways, he said.
Minutes before the shooting, Holmes and other witnesses in the theater say he stood up like he was taking a phone call and walked out the emergency exit door. Reid called that phone call a ruse and said it was designed to distract people, an important detail that he said pointed to a sound mind.
“These actions appear to be rational ones and reasonable ones, one that might be expected of someone who didn’t want to be discovered, didn’t want to be stopped,” he said.
That thinking — if he did something he knew what the result would be — is a sign of a sound mind, Reid said.
Prosecutors have said they expect to finish showing the video Thursday. After that, the defense is expected to cross examine Reid.