PERRY: Samour inflicts mass myopia with camera obscura Holmes trial ruling

Picture this, Aurora. After a grueling nine-week trial next year, admitted Aurora theater shooter James Holmes is found innocent of the horrific July 2012 massacre.

Mayhem erupts in the courtroom.

You’re watching the verdict live on Denver TV. What you see could easily be a webcam from the lobby not the courtroom of the Arapahoe County courthouse, or it could be a feed from somewhere inside a local mall. The image and sound are so bad you really can’t tell.

Admit it. You really haven’t thought much about the possibility of Holmes getting off. It seems absurd, mostly because his lawyers already said he did it, and no one has disputed it. He got off because Holmes’ lawyers persuaded at least one juror that Aurora’s most recognizable former denizen was too mentally ill at the time of the bloodbath to be held accountable.

What’s more, as the trial unfolded, it became clear that not only was it pretty easy to persuade a jury that Holmes was insane that day when he got in his car to go murder people inside the Aurora Century 16 theater, he’d been really sick for some time. The spotlight on his psychiatrist and teachers at the University of Colorado Denver highlighted questions about whether Holmes could have been stopped.

Suddenly, the whole country is forced to look at every college and university in their community to decide on how to handle privacy, freedom, accountability and liability when it comes to mentally ill students.

In this fictional but plausible scenario, Holmes goes to a mental hospital to get well, and university officials go to their lawyers in preparation for the mother of all liability lawsuits.

Now, how much of this landmark trial would you like to see for yourself? How important would it be to hear smart, educated professionals explain what they knew about Holmes, and what they did to alert others to a potential threat, and what they didn’t do?

Pretty damned important. Of course, you’ll be able to read our account of testimony from university officials and the people who decide whether Holmes was insane when he put Aurora on the map in a way no one ever dreamed could happen. There will be lots of written accounts of the trial.

What there won’t be, is an opportunity for you and the whole world to see and hear for yourself what led to that possible verdict, or maybe a guilty verdict.

Judge Carlos Samour ruled this week that newspaper and TV stations can’t photograph or record the proceedings. Instead, the lame closed-circuit TV camera, which looks a lot like the video feed from behind the register at a local 7-Eleven, is good enough. In an odd ruling released Sept. 30, Samour made a compelling argument for cameras in the courtroom, citing the uniqueness of the trial and the long-term national implications of either verdict, and then locked professional cameras out.

Our newsroom, and I can assume all the others, were hammered by some victims and others because we’re pushing for courtroom cameras and feeds.

“Don’t give Aurora shooter the celebrity he craves,” tweeted Hollye Dexter, using the hashtag “#NoCameras.”

In honor of shooting victim Alex Teves, a host of people tweeted “#JusticeNotEntertainment,” demanding that cameras be kept out.

That we continue to use Holmes’ name and provide details about him during rare courtroom appearances infuriates a lot of people. They would prefer we modify our coverage to be more like that J.K. Rowling created with the Harry Potter series, alluding to Holmes as “He Who Must Not Be Named.”

They don’t get it. It’s really not about Holmes at this point. It’s about all of us. The trial will reveal how easy it is to collect an arsenal of lethal weapons. It will reveal how nearly impossible it is to determine who’s dangerously mentally ill and who’s just really mentally ill, and do something meaningful about it. It will reveal how impossible it is to define “insanity” in a case where the accused went to such great lengths and plans to carry out his crime.

For years, this trial will be used to persuade gun-rights participants on both sides of the issue. It will be used to form American college mental health standards, programs and protocols. The trial will serve to help other defense lawyers get mass murderers off of their convictions, and to guide other prosecutors on how to win a death sentence.

It isn’t about the media or Holmes, it’s about you. You, as an Aurora resident, victim and voter will be critical not to what happens with this mass shooting, but how the country will prevent the next one.

Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com