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(USGovernment-News.Com, March 16, 2013 ) Harrisburg, PA -- A judge in Colorado has rejected the plea of insanity for the Colorado theater shooter, who took the lives of 12 individuals and wounded 70 others.
Lawyers from James Eagan Holmes, who is charged with 166 felony counts, filed motions last week that would have allowed him to be considered mentally unfit to receive the harshest penalties under the Colorado law. Holmes is accused of storming through an Aurora theater which was showing the premiere of “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises” in July and opening fire with a full armaments of legally acquired weapons.
While Holme's lawyers requested that the judge declare Colorado's insanity law unconstitutional, in violation of the Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination, the judge was having none of it. The argument had been that it was unclear whether an individual was waving his right to remain silent when revealing confidential medical information.
With a lengthy ruling released, District Judge William Sylvester rejected almost every claim of Holmes' arguments, stating that many had already been settled already within Colorado's courts. He stated that others were “dependent on hypothetical facts and circumstances" that weren't before the court.
The lone request that Sylvester granted Holmes was a written explanation of the consequences of the pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, which the judge attached to his direct ruling.
The defense documentation that was given to the public on Friday added significant weight to the hypothesis that Holmes had planned to plead guilt through insanity, revealing for the first time that Holmes had previously hospitalized for psychiatric treatment at a ward for “several days, frequently in restraints.”
The release of the information came with a motion which asked for the court to assure the Denver Health Medical Center, where Holmes was taken, preserved the video made of his treatment and observation.
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