Prosecutor: 2 exams found James Holmes to be sane

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CENTENNIAL, Colorado (AP) — A prosecutor declared Monday that two psychiatric exams found Colorado theater gunman James Holmes to be sane as he meticulously plotted a mass murder, considering a bomb or biological warfare before settling on a shooting so that he could inflict more "collateral damage."

"Meticulous" was the word Holmes used twice during the exams, District Attorney George Brauchler said, marking the start of a long-awaited, lengthy and emotionally wrenching trial to determine if he'll be executed, spend his life in prison, or be committed to an institution as criminally insane.

The former neuroscience student has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murdering 12 people and wounding 70 at a midnight "Batman" premiere nearly three years ago.

Jurors must eventually decide whether he was unable to know right from wrong because of a mental illness or defect when he slipped into the theater, unleashed tear gas and marched up and down the aisles, firing at people who tried to flee.

"Through this door is horror. Through this door are bullets, blood, brains and bodies. Through this door, one guy who thought as if he had lost his career, lost his love life, lost his purpose, came to execute a plan," said Brauchler, standing before a scale model of the theater.

"Four-hundred people came into a boxlike theater to be entertained, and one person came to slaughter them," the prosecutor said.

Holmes is accused of 166 counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and an explosives offense for the mayhem he caused in suburban Denver on July 20, 2012.

It remains one of America's deadliest shootings, and that Holmes was the lone gunman has never been in doubt. He was arrested at the scene, along with an arsenal of weapons on his body and in his car.

Holmes sat quietly as Brauchler described his emotional rise and fall, interspersing facts about the defendant's life with poignant details about his victims. He said the once-promising doctoral candidate told his ex-girlfriend that he had an "evil" plan "to kill people" but that she dismissed what he said as "theoretical."

Speaking with psychiatrists after his arrest, Holmes described the people he wounded as "collateral damage," and twice called his planning for the mass murder as "meticulous," the prosecutor said.

Each side was allowed two hours for opening statements, with public defenders Daniel King and Katherine Spengler following his presentation.

Defense lawyers say Holmes was in the grips of a psychotic episode and could not tell right from wrong when he went on the rampage. His parents, Robert and Arlene Holmes, in pleading for his life, have called their son a "human being gripped by a severe mental illness."

Under Colorado law, the burden falls on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was "NOT insane," Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr., told the jury. And that depends in part on "a culpable state of mind:" If Holmes acted with deliberation and intent — willfully taking actions that he knew would kill people -- then even if he had mental problems, he should be found guilty of murder, the judge said.

Prosecutors allege that Holmes planned the violence for months, buying a rifle, a shotgun, two pistols, tear gas canisters, body armor, thousands of rounds of ammunition and a chemical stockpile that turned his 800-square-foot apartment into a booby trap that might have caused a conflagration.

The state has already spent millions seeking that verdict, managing an outsized number of victims, witnesses and more than 85,000 pages of evidence. Nearly three years passed hundreds of motions were filed in legal debates over capital punishment and insanity pleas.

Winning a trial on mental-health grounds is rare, but then again, so are jury trials for mass shooters. Most are killed by police, kill themselves or plead guilty.

A review of 160 mass shootings found killers went to trial 74 times, and just three were found insane, according to Grant Duwe, a Minnesota corrections official who wrote the book "Mass Murder in the United States: A History."

Brauchler began laying out how the once-promising doctoral candidate in neuroscience plotted and planned for months, amassing guns, ammunition, tear gas grenades and enough chemicals to turn his dingy apartment into a potentially lethal booby trap that could have caused even more carnage.