CENTENNIAL — The video begins with a police patrol car screeching to a halt in a hospital ambulance bay.
Soon comes another. Then many more.
Bloodied victims of the Aurora movie theater shooting spill out of the cars and onto hospital gurneys, a handoff in the race to save their lives. Prosecutors contend the video is a gripping testament to the horror that a gunman brought to the Century Aurora 16 theaters on July 20, 2012.
But, on Tuesday, Judge Carlos Samour Jr. ruled that it cannot be evidence in the trial of James Holmes.
“That point has been made,” Samour said about the severity and chaos of the attack. “The jury understands that now.”
In a case that encompasses 12 slain victims, 70 wounded survivors, two separate crime scenes, hundreds of first-responders and thousands of pieces of evidence, Samour and the attorneys on both sides of the case are struggling with a delicate question: How much is too much?
Colorado’s court rules give prosecutors wide latitude for presenting as much evidence as they have. But the rules also prohibit the “needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” The latter rule is designed to keep jurors from being emotionally swayed by repetition of dramatic testimony or images.
In part because defense attorneys have not plainly stated in the trial that Holmes committed the attack, Samour so far has generally sided with prosecutors in debates over whether evidence is cumulative. But, on Tuesday, he reached his limit.
Samour said the video, taken by surveillance cameras at the University of Colorado Hospital, provides low-quality images of victims’ injuries. He noted that prosecutors can identify by name only four victims shown on the video. And, in a case where Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, Samour said police officers’ heroics in rushing victims to help “isn’t at the heart of the case.”
To the parents of slain victims watching in the courtroom audience, the ruling hurt.
“In the judicial system, my daughter’s last moments of life are seen as ‘scant importance & cumulative,’ ” Sandy Phillips wrote on Twitter. Her daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was killed in the attack and is one of the victims shown on the video.
In other rulings on cumulative evidence, Samour has allowed survivors of the shooting to recount in detail their experiences inside the theater, no matter how similar they are. But he has blocked prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty against Holmes, from repeatedly showing jurors photos of slain victims. And he has also told prosecutors that they cannot call any more first-responders to testify about the shooting scene unless those witnesses can add something new.
“The judge has tried to reach a fair balance,” Denver defense attorney and legal analyst Dan Recht said. “It’s always a difficult decision.”
Tuesday’s testimony intermingled evidence both tedious and tragic.
Detectives listed items taken from Holmes’ car and apartment, down to an orange funnel and an empty package for a glow stick. Survivors of the shooting recounted panicked crawls across the theater floor to safety. And two crime-scene investigators detailed the bullet pieces removed from each of the 12 slain victims during their autopsies.
Rebecca Wingo: four shotgun pellets, four lead fragments, three copper fragments.
Jesse Childress: 10 shotgun pellets.
When investigators testified about Ghawi — four lead fragments, four copper fragments — Phillips turned her face toward her lap and cried. She wore her daughter’s green scarf.
When investigators reached Alex Teves — four copper fragments, seven lead fragments — Phillips put her arm around Teves’ weeping mother, Caren, who sat beside her.
When investigators reached Micayla Medek — bullets in her spine, right chest and left lung — Medek’s grandmother stifled a sob.
And when investigators reached Veronica Moser-Sullivan — bullet pieces in her left hip, right knee and abdomen — prosecutors also sought to introduce two more items of evidence taken from the 6-year-old girl’s body: The tiny earrings and spangled sandals she wore that night.
But Samour blocked the items from evidence.
They were just too much, he said.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp