Mass shooting suspect James Holmes failed
oral exams, made unspecified threats and was banned from the University of
Colorado campus where he was studying just weeks before he went on a rampage at
a midnight movie premiere, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors say Holmes' academic records,
application and grades, which they haven't yet seen, will show the neuroscience
student's state of mind in the weeks before the July 20 assault in the crowded
theater that left 12 dead and 58 injured.
"The fact that he took and failed his
oral board on June 7 is very much relevant to what happened after,"
prosecutor Karen Pearson argued to Judge William B. Sylvester on Thursday
afternoon at Arapahoe District Court.
Holmes, 24, who sat quietly in court
twiddling his thumbs and steepling his manacled hands, still has red-orange
hair, but with heavy sideburns and mustache growing in. Pearson did not
elaborate on the threats received by university officials or why they had
revoked Holmes’ campus access and ID.
Defense attorney Daniel King called
prosecutors' efforts a "fishing expedition." King in a prior court
hearing called Holmes "mentally ill" and appears to be laying the
groundwork for an insanity defense.
King added Thursday: "It's irrelevant
what the motive is."
Sylvester took the arguments under
advisement following the 40-minute hearing.
Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol
Chambers has charged Holmes with 142 criminal counts, including 24 counts of
murder. Holmes, who has not yet entered a plea, faces 12 counts of premeditated
murder and 12 counts of murder with malice and extreme indifference to human
life.
Next Thursday, attorneys will argue whether
interactions between Holmes, a doctoral student, and university psychiatrist
Dr. Lynne Fenton are protected under doctor-patient confidentiality laws.
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