Holmes' Lawyers Done Trying to Convince Jury He's Insane

Closing arguments begin Tuesday
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 10, 2015 12:51 PM CDT
Holmes' Lawyers Done Trying to Convince Jury He's Insane
A 2013 photo of James Holmes in court.   (Andy Cross/The Denver Post via AP, Pool, File)

It's all down to the closing arguments now: The defense in the James Holmes trial rested its case today after trying to convince the jury over two weeks that the suspected gunman was insane. They used testimony from two psychiatrists to that effect, countering the opinion of two psychiatrists called by prosecutors who found Holmes to be legally sane when he killed 12 and injured 70 inside a theater in Aurora, Colorado, reports AP. Holmes himself uttered his longest sentence of the trial yesterday, telling the judge, "I choose not to testify," reports the Denver Post.

Defense lawyers highlighted strange behavior by Holmes after the shooting, including him playing with paper bags that had been placed over his hands to preserve gunpowder residue as evidence. They also showed jurors surveillance video of Holmes in his cell, where he ran into walls head first. The AP reports the defense's "star witness," schizophrenia expert Dr. Raquel Gur, said Holmes was displaying signs of schizophrenia even previous to his starting post-graduate work in Colorado in 2011; Gur found him to be emotionless during interviews—28 hours of them over a 2-year span. Closing arguments start Tuesday. (More James Holmes stories.)

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