Yesterday, Dan Elliott and P. Solomon Banda of the Huffington Post reported that James Holmes' attorneys have told prosecutors that their client is willing to plead guilty to murder. Holmes, as everyone recalls, showed up at the midnight showing of the new Batman movie last summer, tossed in a tear gas canister, then opened fire on the audience, killing 12 and wounding dozens more. If the offer is accepted the prosecution would agree to take the death penalty off the table and Holmes would spend the rest of his life in prison without the hope of parole,
Banda and Elliott write that the defense offered to make the plea before March 12th, but had yet to receive an answer from prosecutors. Speculation is that the plea offer is being made public now in order to reach out to the surviving victims and the relatives of those who died that awful night.
The move has been met with mixed reviews. The article quotes Melisa Cowden, who was the ex wife of one of those killed and the mother of two who survived the attack as saying, "He didn't give 12 people the chance to plea bargain. No, no plea bargain." However, it also cites Pierce O'Farrill, one of the wounded, as saying "I don't see his death bringing me peace."
It is expected the prosecution will give the defense their answer within a few days. If turned down the Holmes' counselors will fall back onto a plea of innocent by reason of insanity, which is what everyone expected in the first place.
There could be several reasons the defense team made the offer. The first and foremost is that their guy did it and the second is that its damned hard to be ruled legally insane in Colorado.
Apparently there are a few different "tests" for insanity that can be applied. First off just because you are mentally ill the state doesn't necessarily consider you insane. There is something called the M'Naghten Rule. It states a person is insane if laboring under such a defect of reason arising from a disease of the mind that he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he didn't know what he was doing was wrong.
Then there is an irresistible impulse test which says that to be judged insane the defendant must have acted from an irresistible and uncontrollable impulse, must be unable to choose between right and wrong behavior and his or her will was destroyed such that his or her actions were beyond control.
Next is the penal code test which says a person is insane only if he or she lacked the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his or her conduct or conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law.
Those are, pardon the pun, tough nuts to crack. Especially when trying to prove all of that to a jury of 12 men and women who have probably gleaned the sum total of their medical knowledge from pill bottle labels.
Jimmy Holmes might be bat shit crazy, but legally insane is different animal all together. And that is before the prosecution points out to the jurors that if he is found innocent by reason of insanity he can be released from a mental institution as soon as he is deemed no longer a danger to himself or the public. The specter of this deadly geek loose on the streets once again will be just too unacceptable, not to mention horrifying, to contemplate. There isn't a jury out there that will take that chance, no matter how infinitesimal it might be.
Yes, if you're the defense it is best to get this nightmare over with as quickly as possible. Plead guilty and at least remove the needle from the equation. Sometimes that is all you can and should do.
Meanwhile in Connecticut NBC News is reporting that police have said Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School killer, pulled off 155 rounds in less than five minutes. He used the first 154 on the 20 first graders and six teachers he murdered and the 155th one on himself. He had taken nine 30 round clips into the school with him. Three were still full.
The report, written by Michael Isikoff, Tom Winter, and Erin McClam, says that a search of the Lanza house revealed seven different personal journals, drawings, an unspecified certificate from the NRA, and a number of books, including an NRA guide to the basics of pistol shooting. Also found was a New York Times story about a shooting at Northern Illinois University, some photos of what appeared to be a dead person covered with plastic and blood, and a Holiday card from his mother that included a check meant to buy his Christmas present, a brand new gun.
Nancy Lanza was her son's first victim that day. He shot her in the head four times before leaving home.
Merry Christmas to you too, Mom.
@GunDeaths and Slate report that at least 3,076 Americans have been shot to death since December 14th, 2012.
Such is the price of freedom in America.
3-28-13
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