The defense team has called yet another witness who saw Holmes in the fall of 2012. The current witness is an emergency room doctor. This doctor treated Holmes when he was sent to the hospital from the jail after Holmes had his "breakdown" in 2012. The problem is, they have yet to call anyone who saw, observed, talked to, or anything else, with Holmes BEFORE or IMMEDIATELY AFTER the July 2012 murders. If I was a juror, I don't care what he was like in November 2012, he didn't commit the crimes in November 2012. I want to know how he was in July 2012 when he committed the crimes.
I sure hope the defense has something more at some point.
Plus, the majority of the last several witnesses are people who dealt with Holmes in November 2012. Some of these folks - like an ambulance attendant - saw him for only a few minutes. And yet they're being asked to remember what Holmes was like 2.5 years earlier!
Thing about that ... what were you doing in November 2012? Do you remember all the people you met only once during that month? Do you remember how they behaved or acted?
I will grant them two things. One, the fact that it was Holmes, who would have been well-known at the time, might make any meeting with him stand out in memory. And two, lawyers have probably talked to you about your interactions several times before 2015, so you're first time remembering the situation would have been less than 2.5 later. But still ... that's a LONG time ago!
After the doctor they called three nurses that were assigned to him while he was at a specific institution in 2013 or 2014 when he was being interviewed by Dr. Reid. He was only at their hospital for a couple of days. He did come back and one of the nurses attended to him on the 2nd visit as well. But they had absolutely nothing to say about him other than he was calm, polite and answered their questions, but didn't talk otherwise.
The jury went on break and now the lawyers are arguing about the admittance of a set of slides that the defense's next witness - a woman named Dr. Gur who is apparently a research psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania. She created these slides to help explain her findings to the jury, but the defense only provided a copy to the prosecution on Friday (which was a holiday) and the prosecution is objecting to their use because they've had no time to review them or ask their own experts about them, etc. The judge is going to think about it over the break and rule when he comes back.
This is an interesting one. I'm going to say that the judge will sustain the objection. We'll see if I'm right in about 20 minutes.
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Here's something interesting. The defense is trying to show that the mental illness that the defendant had was made worse in November 2012 because of his time in jail. They're claiming that this is the same situation that happened in July 2012 that caused him to murder 12 people and injure 70 others. But here's the problem .... when he broke down in November 2012 he literally went crazy. He stopped eating and drinking. He played with his own feces. He tried to take something off the wall of his cell with a metal spoon. He would fall back onto the floor from his bed (which injured him) and he smashed his head against the wall several times.
In other words, when he broke down in November 2012 he was not able to behave 'normally' and continue doing 'normal' activities. He was in such a state that he wasn't able to communicate or function properly. This is nothing like how he was in July 2012. In July he was able to function normally. He ate. He didn't do anything destructive against himself. He was able to communicate and plan. In other words, he appeared 'normal.'
If anything this evidence shows that whatever happened to him in November 2012 was unique and different from whatever happened to him previously. And it wasn't until November 2012 that he was put on medication for mental illness. Between July and November he was not on any medications related to mental illnesses. To me it seems that prior to November 2012 Holmes was in a pretty decent state.
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They've been arguing over the slides that were objected to since they came back from break. They're going through slide by slide. A lot of the slides have been thrown out.
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I missed the end of their discussion about the slides as *I* had to go to lunch and then an appointment. I'm back now and it's 2:20pm and they're just starting with Dr. Gur! Dr. Gur is a psychiatrist and a neurologist, but she also has a PhD in psychology. How the hell long was she in school?
BSc from Michigan State University
MSc in Psychology from Michigan State
PhD in Psychology from Michigan State
Post Doc at Stanford
MD from U of Penn
Residency in Neurology and Psychiatry
Holy shit ... Dr. Gur isn't board certified in psychiatry, yet the defense is asking that she be considered an expert in psychiatry. Apparently she's only board certified in neurology and psychology, but the defense isn't asking her to be made an expert in those two fields. How is that even possible?
And as an FYI - Brachler stumbled on this by accident. He was about to ask her "are you board certified in ...." and she started to nod. He asked her if she knew what he was going to ask and she said yes, and then stated "Are you board certified in psychiatry?" Apparently that was not what he was going to ask, and it opened the door for him to ask it, and that's when he found out she isn't board certified.
This raises a couple questions. One - can you allow someone to be an expert in something that they do not hold a license to practice? Two - why the hell didn't the prosecution already know this?
I have my answer to #1 - apparently you can be an expert witness on a topic you aren't technically licensed to practice. So I suppose someone could make me an expert witness in psychiatry if they wanted. Interesting.
I think I know why Dr. Gur hasn't been used in court many times before. She has an extremely thick accent. She's actually quite hard to understand, thankfully she's talking slowly, some of the time. She might be extremely smart and an expert on her subjects, but as a witness she's not so good. She doesn't allow the lawyer to finish his question before she attempts to answer. And her answers go way off topic - WAY off topic. If I was a juror, I'd be falling asleep right now. Interestingly, Dr. Reid, the prosecutions main expert witness, was a very personable guy who spoke well and presented himself as a nice guy who didn't have an ego. Dr. Gur seems a little full of herself.
DAMN, that's annoying ... she keeps interrupting the lawyer!!! She keeps cutting him off!! King actually had to tell her not to explain something in detail AND he had to reign her in when he asked her another question. Didn't they prepare her?
Holy shit ... she's REALLY full of herself!
***** [afternoon break] *****
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