By Jack Healy
The New York Times
Published May 13, 2013
Mental health experts who evaluated the man accused of killing 12 people in a Colorado movie theater last year have offered a diagnosis that bolsters an insanity plea in the case, his lawyers said at a hearing here on Monday.
“We now have a diagnosis that’s complete,” Daniel King, a defense lawyer for the suspect, James E. Holmes, said in court. “We now have an opinion by qualified professionals.”
Mr. Holmes, 25, a former graduate student in neuroscience, faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the July 20 shooting during a midnight premiere of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” at an Aurora movie theater. Officials say he slipped out of an emergency exit shortly after the movie began, sheathed himself in commando-style gear and then returned through the same door to spray the sold-out crowd with gunfire.
Mr. Holmes’s lawyers made a long-expected move on Monday to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. At an arraignment in March, a judge entered a straightforward not guilty plea on Mr. Holmes’s behalf after his lawyers said they were not ready to enter a plea.
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