CENTENNIAL – Aurora theater shooter James Holmes said Thursday that he has chosen not to testify in his death-penalty trial.
Holmes told Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. he had discussed the decision with his attorneys, responding to the judge’s questions with direct “Yes” and “No” answers and swiveling slightly in his chair.
Had Holmes chosen to testify, prosecutors would have been able to cross-examine him. Samour determined that Holmes’ decision not to testify was made “voluntarily and intelligently.”
The final days of testimony have presented jurors with the pivotal question they’ll have to decide – whether to believe psychiatrists who say Holmes was sane, or whether to believe psychiatrists who say he was insane when he opened fire in a crowded movie theater in 2012.
Holmes’ defense, which is expected to rest its case Friday, called a nationally known schizophrenia expert who, on Thursday, defended her conclusion that Holmes was so delusional that he was unable to tell right from wrong during the attack that killed 12 people and injured 70. Closing statements are expected next week.
Dr. Raquel Gur saw Holmes for 28 hours in six separate meetings. She leads the Schizophrenia Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania and is considered the star witness for the defense.
She testified Thursday that Holmes didn’t hate the people he shot but was suffering delusions that killing others would increase his self-worth.
“He did not feel angry,” Gur said. “He wanted to stop the thoughts that had bothered him for years.”
But prosecutors hammered at Gur’s report, accusing her over more than two days of cross-examination of everything from bad grammar to being errant by not asking certain follow-up questions or recording her interviews.
