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| Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C. public psychiatric facility. |
James Holmes was charged with 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and other related offenses from his July 20, 2012 shooting rampage in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater that left twelve dead and at least fifty-eight injured. According to his attorneys, Holmes was in "the throes of a psychotic episode when
he committed acts that resulted in the tragic loss of life." With this
admission and the District Court Judge's acceptance of Holmes’s plea of not
guilty by reason of insanity, the scope of the trial was transformed from a
determination of factual guilt to whether or not Holmes was sane, and thus
culpable for his actions. Insanity pleas
have been around since ancient times, and the defense is based on the notion
that some people with mental illnesses because of a lack of understanding or
because of an inability to resist an urge are not culpable for their actions. As the defense has developed through time, it
has been inconsistently applied throughout the states.
