Several Dead in Dark Knight Premiere Mass Shooting

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by mooby

He looks like a nut. I'm presuming they are going to go with the insanity defense.

Not a defense likely to succeed, IMHO. Here's the statute for CO's insanity defense:

16-8-101.5. Insanity defined - offenses committed on and after July 1, 1995.
(1) The applicable test of insanity shall be: (a) A person who is so diseased or defective in mind at the time of the commission of the act as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong with respect to that act is not accountable; except that care should be taken not to confuse such mental disease or defect with moral obliquity, mental depravity, or passion growing out of anger, revenge, hatred, or other motives and kindred evil conditions, for, when the act is induced by any of these causes, the person is accountable to the law; or

(b) A person who suffered from a condition of mind caused by mental disease or defect that prevented the person from forming a culpable mental state that is an essential element of a crime charged, but care should be taken not to confuse such mental disease or defect with moral obliquity, mental depravity, or passion growing out of anger, revenge, hatred, or other motives and kindred evil conditions, for, when the act is induced by any of these causes, the person is accountable to the law.

(2) As used in subsection (1) of this section: (a) "Diseased or defective in mind" does not refer to an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct.

(b) "Mental disease or defect" includes only those severely abnormal mental conditions that grossly and demonstrably impair a person's perception or understanding of reality and that are not attributable to the voluntary ingestion of alcohol or any other psychoactive substance but does not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct.

Session Laws of Colorado 1995 - Chapter 26

According to the statute, as I read it, it is an affirmative defense. Meaning Holmes must prove that - as he was formulatting the crime - he lacked the cognitive ability to distinguish right from wrong. [Note the limitation stated in the second part of the statute: "care should be taken not to confuse such mental disease or defect with moral obliquity, mental depravity, or passion growing out of anger, revenge, hatred, or other motives and kindred evil conditions because, when the act is induced by any of these causes, the person is accountable to the law."]

Given the amount of planning, the nature of the crime and the booby trapped apartment, I think it would be next to impossible for him to prove he was under some delusion that prevented him from distinguishing right from wrong.