The Aurora movie theater murder trial could be postponed again, after defense attorneys asked the judge on Tuesday to push back the December trial date.
In a new motion, the defense argues that it will not have enough time to review the recently completed sanity examination of James Holmes to be ready for trial in less than two months. The defense says its two mental-health expert witnesses need at least several weeks to review the evaluation.
“[I]t has become abundantly clear that counsel will require additional time before they are prepared to proceed to trial in this case,” defense attorneys write in their motion.
The defense does not propose a new trial date. Judge Carlos Samour has given prosecutors until Wednesday to file a response. Trial in the case has already been postponed multiple times.
The report of the latest sanity exam — the second of Holmes conducted by a court-appointed psychiatrist — was filed last week. The report’s conclusions are sealed, but the defense motion discloses for the first time that the exam was conducted by Texas-based forensic psychiatrist William Reid.
The new motion also hints of coming battles over Reid’s report, noting that it “raises significant new issues.”
“It is now clear based on Dr. Reid’s report that there will be extensive litigation,” defense attorneys write in the motion.
In a court document filed Monday and made public earlier Tuesday, defense attorneys disclosed that Reid interviewed Holmes for 22 hours as part of the exam.
That’s significant, the defense argued, because it meant they had too much work to do reviewing the video to meet a key Monday deadline. Under Colorado court rules, the defense must turn over to prosecutors a list of evidence they plan to introduce during a death-penalty sentencing hearing and the names of witnesses they expect to call. The defense argues that disclosure of some of that information violates self-incrimination protections, and Monday was the deadline for the defense to give that contested material to the judge so he can decide if it must be shared.
“Until defense counsel are able to thoroughly review all of the materials generated by the second sanity examination, they cannot make informed decisions about which witnesses they intend to endorse for sentencing,” the attorneys wrote in the filing.
But Samour was unmoved, noting that the defense merely notified him of their concerns rather than asking for more time. As a result, Samour concluded that he would not allow the defense to withhold any information from prosecutors.
“On this record,” Samour wrote in an order, “the Court finds that the defense has concluded that there is no material subject” to self-incrimination protections.
Holmes, who is charged with 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and other offenses, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, meaning that psychiatric evaluations will likely be the centerpieces of the case. Samour ordered the second evaluation after concluding the first evaluation was incomplete.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold
