40 days! That's 9 weeks, assuming 5 day weeks, so far. They told jurors to expect 4 months. The way I think it works is that once both sides have finished their presentations it goes to the jury for deliberation regarding the charges - i.e. is he guilty or not guilty due to insanity. But once they've ruled, both sides then get to provide information for sentencing purposes, including victim impact statements (I think). Then the same jury has to decide on sentencing - i.e. life in prison versus death penalty.
I guess the major aspect of the length of the trial will be how long it will take the jury to deliberate everything. I guess it could take them anywhere from a few minutes to weeks to decide. The judge keeps telling them that they have to keep an open mind throughout the whole and not come to any conclusions before the end of the presentations - but how is that humanly possible? Ironically this trial is all about sanity and human psychology, and how humans think, etc. Yet they assume that the 24 (I think it might be down to 20 now) jurors can actually NOT form an opinion about the whole trial before the last day! I would think, while they may try otherwise, that the jurors probably walk away everyday with some sort of opinion of what's going on, based on everything they've heard up until that point. But everyday their opinion is probably changed or swayed by whatever is presented.
If I were a juror, I'd be leaning towards the prosecution's side right now, based on all the evidence I've heard/seen. Although I have seen/heard things that they have not be in court for, and I have missed a number of days. But to date I haven't felt that the defense's evidence has been strong enough to show the defendant was actually insane (legally) at the time of the act.
This morning they've been in court for at least 30 minutes without the jury. They've been debating various other things including whether or not the defense can show a video of an interview that the prosecution had with the defendant while he was in the hospital in November 2012. It appears that the defense wants to show the video because it demonstrates the defendant's state of mind in November 2012, immediately after starting his anti-psychotic medication. However the prosecution has objected to showing the video because the interviewer is not a doctor/psychiatrist/psychologist, therefore the defendant's responses can't be analyzed properly in court, AND because the defendant's responses would be used "as the truth of the matter" which is not allowed because it's hearsay.
In the end, the objection was sustained by the judge, and the defense is not allowed to show the video UNLESS they're able to lay additional foundation that doesn't have any objections to it. The main reason it was sustained was because it contained too much hearsay, AND because the prosecution would not have the opportunity to cross-examine the defendant. The judge made a comment that if the defense wanted to put the defendant on the stand they'd be able to introduce the video - but the chances of that happening are about as good as me winning a billion dollar lottery today.
Why oh why do I find this so damn fascinating?
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Holy cow - you made your point! The defense has a nurse on the stand who worked in the jail in 2012. They called her to the stand to talk about the defendant around mid-November when he started acting crazy, as she witnessed this and made notes of it in his file.
Two things came of this, none of them good for the defense:
1. The nurse noted that on the day the defendant was taken to the hospital for a cat scan, she anticipated they'd have to lift him onto the stretcher, but instead he got up on his own and was able to get onto the stretcher with the help of the attendants. She was surprised by this based on how he had behaved up to this point.
2. The prosecution went through almost everyday that this nurse had been on shift in the jail between July 29th and mid-November. And every single one of those days her notes show the defendant acted 'normally' and nothing unusual happened.
While many psychiatrists have said they do not believe the defendant is faking, I think it is very possible that he reached a point, while in jail, where he realized his situation was quite bad and was smart enough to know that if he acted crazy it might help him. He's a super-smart guy - there's no way he wasn't thinking - at some point - how to get himself out of the worst possible outcome (i.e. death penalty).
Did you know that sometime around 2013 when the D.A. was up for re-election in the Colorado county where the trial is taking place, the current D.A. campaigned on NOT eliminating the death penalty because he wanted to try to get the death penalty for Holmes.
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I'm done listening to the trial for the day. They've gone on break and by the time they come back, it'll be time for me to head home. They seem to have a longer day than me, except they get much more frequent and longer breaks. Two 20 minute breaks plus a 90 minute lunch break. Nice.
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