Roundup: Colorado mass murder trial ends, possible verdict next week

Lawyers defending James Holmes rested their case this week after showing 45 minutes of disturbing video of the schizophrenic mass murderer being restrained by deputies and ramming his head into a concrete wall.

The prosecution and defense will deliver closing arguments next Tuesday, and the jury will begin deliberations by Wednesday.

A decision of guilty may be handed down as early as next week, as court observers say the jury is leaning toward a conviction.

That finding will trigger a sentencing hearing in August before Holmes' final fate is determined.

Once they begin next week, the jury will need several hours to address each of the 166 counts of murder and attempted murder against Holmes for the 2012 attack at a packed Batman movie premiere that killed 12 and wounded 70.

Friday, two silent videos closed the defense's case, the last showing a naked Holmes being forcibly strapped down -- spread-eagle -- to a hospital bed by a half dozen deputies, who were responding to his agitated, crazy behavior.

The other video showed Holmes crouch, then run head first into a concrete wall 10 feet away, fall back, and then sit up after a minute.

The bizarre incidents occurred four months after the July 20, 2012 massacre when Holmes was in solitary confinement and deeply depressed.

Prosecutors, led by District Attorney George Brauchler, have not only produced psychiatrists who say Holmes fit the legal definition of sanity -- knowing right versus wrong -- but also successfully have rebutted testimony from defense psychiatrists who call Holmes insane.

If found sane, Holmes faces the death penalty; if found insane, he will spend his life in a mental facility. ' Thursday's key defense witness was barraged with 70 probing jury questions after the testimony of Dr. Raquel Gur, suggesting jurists were following Brauchler's lead, who wants Holmes executed for one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history.

Gur, 67, an award-winning, world-renowned expert on schizophrenia, was hammered by questions asking why she hadn't done a more thorough job investigating Holmes, and how exactly she determined he was insane the night he killed a dozen people.

Gur, a psychiatrist practicing in Pennsylvania, interviewed Holmes for 28 hours and said his profound schizophrenia created psychotic delusions that killing people increased his self worth, that he didn't understand the people he killed wanted to live, and that he could not differentiate between right and wrong.

But Brauchler, 45, whose persuasive and oratory skills seem to have drawn the jury to his side, first crafting a powerful and effective eight-week case against the former neuroscience Ph. D. candidate.

It has been three years since Holmes walked calmly into the exit door of the nearby Century 6 multiplex theaters and ambushed a packed movie theater audience by unloading three guns and hundreds of bullets.

Pundits predict the jury will deny Holmes' "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea and find the defendant, then a brilliant 24-year-old neuroscience PhD. candidate, "sane," and that he carefully planned the killings to inflict maximum damage, and knew he was doing wrong.

Holmes faces the first death penalty conviction in Colorado in 18 years.

There is a likelihood Holmes will be spared execution if one of 12 jurors, who will decide his fate, chooses leniency in the final phase of the legal proceedings, pulling the plug on the state's goal to execute him by lethal injection.

If found guilty, Holmes faces a sentencing hearing that will last 2-4 weeks, after which execution or life imprisonment will be finally decreed.

Although already stated by his defense team, this week also saw Holmes officially declare he will not take the stand.

"I choose not to testify," the former graduate student said quickly and clearly from the defense table.

Holmes, now heavily medicated on anti-psychotic drugs, and 30-pounds heavier than he was three years ago, appears in court each day with short hair and button-down shirts.

Thursday, before court adjourned for the day, Holmes said 19 words, answering a questions from Judge Carlos Samour, Jr. that he understood his rights but chose not to defend himself.

It was the most Holmes has said publicly since the shooting.

Samour told Holmes he could testify even if his attorneys told him not to, and that he would be cross-examined by Brauchler if he spoke. Endi