WEBVTT - Insights Into The Mind of Madness 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:09.840 In May, a former British soldier named James Hadfield tried 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.879 to kill the King of England. Hadfield fired a horse 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.600 pistol on King George the Third as he entered the 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.599 Theater Royal in London. He missed, but Hadfield didn't care. 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.479 The delusional assassin was convinced that his own execution for 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.760 the crime would bring about the second Coming of Jesus Christ. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.400 It didn't, but it did bring about a revolution in 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.000 the criminal law. An enterprising lawyer saved Hadfield from the 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.800 hangman's noose, and the man who had tried to shoot 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.040 the king was found not guilty of treason by way 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.800 of insanity. That case is the granddaddy of all modern 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:48.040 day insanity defenses, including a present day massacre that led 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:53.599 to the longest prison sentence in US history. Three fifteen 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.560 and three fourteen. First shooting at Centre Theaters, fourteen Et 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:03.360 Alameda Avenue. Somebody's suit in the auditorium over at the 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.680 fun to the theater. Somebody is still sitting inside the 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.119 number nine. Current employe. Yeah, all of our people, same 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.560 theater nine where Batman was playing. We got another curt 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.479 out place in the leg of female. I got people 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.520 run it out of thee they're shot and learned night. 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.720 I got coming down. When you're not coming down, you're 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.440 up coming to start thinking somebody victims be a car. 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:29.000 I got a whole bunch of people got out here. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.000 No rescue. Yeah, up the car and you're out of here. 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.440 It was one of the worst mash shootings in American history. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.600 Twelve people killed and fifty eight injured. Seventy victims in all, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.840 so many the police turned the back seats of their 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:55.240 cruisers into makeshift ambulances. But this mash shooting, perpetrated in 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.680 a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, was different. James Holmes, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:17.920 the Killer survived. I'm Sean Braswell and this is the thread. 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.920 Each season we unraveled the stories behind some of the 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.720 most important lives and events in history to discover essentially 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.480 how one thing leads to another. This season, we revisit 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.120 some of the most high profile criminal cases in history 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.560 through the lens of the controversial legal defense that binds 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.600 them together not guilty by way of insanity. We will 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.640 see how this remarkable thread of insanity cases grows out 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.080 of the trial of James Hadfield a hundred and continues 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.440 to impact the law today. We begin, though, with that 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.680 mass murder in Aurora, Colorado. Some of the details you're 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.960 about to hear are horrific, but they were key to 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.600 helping the jury in the case determine if the defendant 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.000 was out of his mind at the time of the shooting. 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:05.520 Five minutes after midnight on July twelve, twenty four year 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.160 old James Egan Holmes strolled through the front doors of 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.360 the Century sixteen Movie Theater in Aurora, Colorado. He stopped 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.720 to hold the door open for two fellow theater goers 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.000 who entered after him. Holmes calmly walked over to a 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.720 kiosk and picked up his ticket for the late night 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.120 showing of the new Batman movie, A Dark Night Rises. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.160 He wore dark, baggy cargo pants and a slightly crooked 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.280 baseball cap that covered a mop of dyed orange hair. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.360 His hair was perhaps out of the ordinary, but there 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.720 was nothing on the surface to distinguish homes from the 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.760 dozens of casually dressed young men there to see the 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.560 latest blockbuster about their favorite comic book. He row. Holmes 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.880 entered theater nine and took a seat in the front 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.400 row of the packed auditorium As the film started, are 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:58.160 you I'll be damned? I was his friend, and it 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:03.000 will be a very long time for someone inspires us. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.280 Minutes later, Holmes pretended to take a phone call. He 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.280 left through the theater's emergency exit, careful to prop open 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.000 the door behind him. When he returned from his part 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.920 car to the theater, it was thirty eight minutes past midnight. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.279 This time, he wore dark body armor and a gas 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.000 mask and carried a shotgun, a high capacity assault rifle, 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.440 and a handgun. This is Dr William Reid, a court 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.320 appointed psychiatric expert in the Holmes case. He walked into 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.240 the theater from the screenside exit through the tear gas 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:41.280 grenade across the theater, and he began shooting, primarily first 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.440 with the shotgun. There's a moment where my daughter tripped 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.320 in and I just pulled her up, and I was 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.200 just dragging her, and I was just thinking, we just 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.960 gotta get out, just even I just got to get 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.160 out the doors. And even if this ball did just 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.560 just get my kids out of here, it was it 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.960 was just so worrible. Holmes walked slowly up and down 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.279 theater aisles. He fired at random people with his shotgun 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.119 until it was empty. Then he dropped it and began 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.800 to fire with the assault rifle. Suddenly, his rifle jammed. 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.559 He couldn't get it to unjammed and left the theater. 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.880 He decided, in his words, the mission was over. He 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.600 calmly walked out of the theater. He actually walked through 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.279 some victim's blood as he walked toward his car. Police 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.880 found Holmes waiting for them in a white Hunda sedan 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.920 parked just behind the theater. They took him to Aurora 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.840 Police headquarters and placed him in a bare interview room 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:39.520 to await interrogation. Holmes is calm detached. An officer puts 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.320 little paper bags over his hands and tapes them to 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:47.159 his wrists a way of preserving gunpowder residue. Holmes plays 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.600 with the paper bags as if they were hand puppets. 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.159 Because homes surrendered, lawyers psychiatrists in the American public were 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.719 given a rare chance to grapple with them. Asked murderer 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.480 directly to glimpse inside the mind of someone who is 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.320 both mentally ill and highly intelligent, to try to understand 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.920 how an honor student named Jimmy from a loving family 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.760 could transform into a crazed killer. James Holmes's crime was 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.280 horrific and there was no doubt that he had done it. 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.760 The question, rather was why Colorado prosecutor sought the death penalty. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.320 Holmes as lawyers fell back on a controversial criminal defense 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.200 that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, and 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.400 they painted a picture of James Holmes that was very 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.799 different from the photos of the young man with orange 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.480 hair that were all over the nightly news. To understand 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.440 why his lawyers chose the insanity defense, we need to 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.000 go back to his childhood, all right. Our next speaker 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.880 is James Holme. Six years before the Aurora shooting, then 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.760 eighteen year old Holmes gave a presentation to fellow summer 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.640 interns at the prestigious Salt Constitute in Wlahoia, California. He 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.240 just graduated from Westview High School and will be attending 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.320 the University of California Riverside. His goals are to become 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.520 a researcher and to make scientific discoveries. It's a good 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.680 start in personal life. He enjoys playing soccer and strategy games, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:14.240 and his dream is to own a Slurpy machine. These 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.600 kids have been fun to work with this summer. Holmes 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.840 approaches the microphone. He's a skinny, geeky looking kid with 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.600 big ears and a mop of hair brushed over his forehead. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.600 He wears an oversized button down shirt untucked. He's bright eyed, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.360 and like most of us, asked to give a presentation 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.480 before a packed room of our peers, he is nervous 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.920 and a bit awkward. Well. The lab by working is 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.040 a computational neural biology lab, or CNL for short. That's right, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.080 James Holmes was not only a smart kid. He was 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.200 an aspiring neuroscientist. My mentor, John Jacobson, who works in CNL, 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.280 is a philosophical type of guy. He's interested in how 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.200 we perceive reality. He also studies subjective experience, which is 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.600 what takes place inside the mind as opposed to the 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.520 external world. I've carried on his word and dealing with 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.960 subjective experience. There was a reason James Holmes was interested 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.520 in this area of research and why he wanted to 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.560 be a neuroscientist. He knew something was wrong in his 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.400 own head. He referred to it as his quote broken mind. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.520 There was nothing particularly unusual about him in his early years. 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.840 Dr William read again a court appointed psychiatrist in the 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.880 Holmes case and author of A Dark Knight in Aurora 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.200 Inside James Holmes and the Colorado mass shootings. He went 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.760 to school like everyone else and was particularly smart, I 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.440 thought very well of by his teachers. The young boy 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.559 from San Diego, California, known to everyone as Jimmy, had 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.000 a very happy childhood. He had loving and attentive parents. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.600 His mom, a nurse, and his dad, as statistician, had 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.679 met at Berkeley. Still, something dark lurked under the surface. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:53.319 As he entered adolescence. He noticed that something felt wrong 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.000 about the way he got along with others and some 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.760 of the thoughts in his head. Holmes started to keep 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.240 to himself more. Around sixth grade, he heard noises hammering 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.960 on his walls at night. He started to think about 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:09.319 killing people, and over the next few years those thoughts 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.800 and fantasies became more and more specific. He would see 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.120 particular people dying, or see things that he described as 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.800 nuclear winter or atomic bombs. He sometimes would even see 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.440 saws cutting off people's heads. By high school, Holmes began 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.719 to think he might be crazy, but he wanted to 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.160 understand why to try to fix his broken mind. He 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.200 believed there was something wrong with him, but still in 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.600 high school he did very well. He easily got into 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.000 college on a scholarship. Holmes continue to excel in college. 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.000 At the University of California at Riverside, he was a 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.319 dean's fellow. He graduated with honors in a nearly perfect 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.120 four point o g p A. He was accepted into 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.600 the neuroscience graduate program at the University of Colorado, and 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.120 in twleven, just a year before the shooting, he packed 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.000 his white hun day then headed eastward. It's the Rocky Mountains. 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:04.520 He did very well for the first six months or 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.560 so of grad school. The professors there and elsewhere will 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.520 tell you that being a little eccentric isn't a bad 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:16.280 thing for graduate students, particularly in sciences. They didn't mind 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.160 the fact that he was a little odd because most 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.400 of the other grad students were a little odd too, 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.319 and Holmes did things that perfectly normal grad students do. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.199 On Valentine's Day, a mere five months before the shooting, 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.720 he made his girlfriend a candle at chicken dinner at 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.240 his apartment. They watched Netflix and eight ice cream. But 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.080 underneath holmes Is broken brain was getting worse he was 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.960 behind on his studies left the laboratory early. He started 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.080 to see things at night, shadows that weren't there. In 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.360 addition to his schooling, which he continued and continued to pass, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.680 James thought more and more about ways to kill people 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.440 and began to plan specific ways to kill them. He 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.000 called this his mission, and the mission was to kill 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.959 as many people as possible so that he could collect 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:09.640 their points. Homes called those points human capital. His delusion 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.440 is a very strange one. It's hard to even to 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.160 know how to describe it exactly. Richard Bonnie is a 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.320 professor of law and of medicine at the University of Virginia. 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.600 He became increasingly preoccupied with the idea that his worth 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:28.720 as a human being could somehow be increased if he 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.280 would kill other people, and he thought killing other people 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.360 might lessen his depression and suicidal thoughts. Again, William read, 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.000 he told me that it was about a fifty fifty chance, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:44.720 so he was willing to kill others on the chance 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.480 of feeling a bit better himself. But so far it 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.439 was just feelings and talk. Home sought help and is 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.240 referred to a psychiatrist named Lynn Fenton at the student 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.679 mental health clinic. In March, he told Dr Fitton about 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.439 his thoughts of killing, but withheld his views on human 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.720 capital and denied he had any specific targets or plans 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.600 to kill. Based on what she heard and the fact 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.760 that Holmes had no history of violence, Vinton prescribed him 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.840 medication for anxiety and depression and scheduled a future appointment. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.240 Almost everyone that I talked with or that I read about, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.719 wonders why in the world nobody put James Holmes in 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:26.960 the hospital. Uh, the reason is quite clear. Our laws 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.800 are civil rights laws, and mental health laws in every 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.680 state make it very difficult to take away a person's 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:38.200 right to walk around to hospitalize them against their will. Meanwhile, 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.959 Holmes's outward life started to match the chaos of his 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.280 inward life. His girlfriend left him, he failed his second 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.319 year exams, and he dropped out of grad school. Over 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.720 the next few weeks, James Holmes hurtled toward disaster and 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.040 the moment he would change thousands of lives. By June, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.520 his mission to kill as many people as possible consumed 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.560 most of his time. He picked a target for his assault, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.599 a location designed to maximize his kills. He began to 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:09.840 purchase weapons, ammunition and armor, and then one warm evening 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.160 in July, it was time to execute his mission. And 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:19.319 finally he brought together all of his body armor and 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.280 ballistic clothing, his weapons, which included an m M P 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.000 fifteen rifle which is much like an a R fifteen 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:34.960 semi automatic rifle, a shotgun to block handguns, and a 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.640 great deal of ammunition. And then he got in his 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:45.400 car and drove without incident, over to the theater. Up 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.520 next the trial of James Holmes. The Aurora gunman was 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.960 clearly disturbed, but would it be enough for him to 0:13:50.960 --> 0:14:06.040 be deemed legally insane. When it's time to make a 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.840 hire for your small business, naturally you want to find 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.720 the best person for the job. Odds are that person 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.480 is on LinkedIn. Here at Aussie where we weave each 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.280 season of the thread, we depend on LinkedIn jobs to 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.920 help us find the right person for our hiring needs 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.840 to put top talent at our fingertips. LinkedIn jobs makes 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.280 it easy to get matched with quality candidates who make 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.480 the most sense for your position. It goes beyond the resume, 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.800 using knowledge of both hard skills and soft skills to 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.200 match you with the people who fit your business the best. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.800 Your LinkedIn jobs matches are based not just on skills 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:43.680 and background, but also on interest, activities and passions. Matching 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.760 lets you quickly get a group of the most relevant, 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.280 qualified candidates. That way you can focus on the candidates 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.520 you want to spend time talking to and make a 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.520 quality higher. You're excited about Post a job today at 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.000 LinkedIn dot com slash thread and get fifty dollars off 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.160 your first job post that's LinkedIn dot com slash thread. 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:10.040 Terms and conditions apply. A disturbing story that has been 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:14.440 sealed away in court for three years came pouring out today. 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.400 This is the first day of the trial of James Holmes. Holmes. 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:23.280 This trial in returned Aurora to the National Spotlight. Prosecution 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.360 filed one hundred and sixty six criminal charges against Holmes, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.480 including twenty four counts of murder and one d and 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.680 forty counts of attempted murder. The district attorney made it 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.160 clear he would seek the death penalty for Holmes as 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:40.720 heinous deeds. Four hundred people filed into a box like 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:47.400 theater to be entertained, and one person came there to 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:52.800 slaughter them. His name is James Egan Holmes, he tried 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.160 to murder a theater full of people to make himself 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.840 feel better. Homes sat at the defense table and a 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.000 dress shirt and slacks, his hair trimmed short, and no 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.760 longer died Orange. His lawyers from the Colorado State Public 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.160 Defender's Office did not challenge that their client had committed 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.560 the atrocity. What the case really came down to, they said, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.480 was what was going on in his mind. There will 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.040 be no doubt in your minds by the end of 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:25.960 this trial that Mr Holmes is severely mentally ill. None. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.360 Why was holmes a state of mind so important the 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.600 insanity defense. Most crimes aren't actually crimes under the law 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.520 unless the defendant intends to do something criminal. Criminal intent 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.880 is required to commit a crime. Yet there's no criminal intent, 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.480 there's no crime. Andrea Alden is author of Disorder in 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.600 the Court, Morality Myth, and the Insanity Defense. For as 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.600 long as we've had civilizations with law, systems of law 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.720 and place, there has been some sort of understanding that 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.640 certain people don't understand the law due to some sort 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.960 of meant defect. A recognition of this fact, of the 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.879 importance of understanding the law when it comes to guilt 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.320 is widespread. In the days of the Roman Empire, defendants 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.480 were sometimes found not guilty because they were noncompassmentous, meaning 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.720 without mastery of mind. William Read again. Some version of 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:21.560 an insanity defense has been around for centuries, even for 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:26.880 thousands of years. The Jewish Torah and Talmud speak of 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.480 not holding people responsible for things that they do when 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.960 they're out of their head. The process, if you look 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.240 at it carefully, is perfectly reasonable. We don't convict four 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.239 year olds of murder if they find a gun and 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.040 accidentally shoot their playmate. Richard Bonnie again a legal scholar 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.359 who has written extensively about the insanity defense. So I 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.040 think that basic intuition is that it's not fair right 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.879 to blame someone when their capacity to choose to do 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.600 the right thing has been fundamentally undermined, you know, by 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.440 a psychotic process over which they have, you know, no control. 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.919 In other words, the subjective reality of defendants like James 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:16.159 Holmes matters. The psychiatric idea here is that as the 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.040 person becomes increasingly focused and driven by something that's not 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.399 true but is what they believe to be true, and 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:29.239 they become you know, detached, from the reality of what 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.080 they are doing. They are also becoming detached from the 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.679 moral reality you know, of what they are doing. But 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.800 how do we tell when someone like James Holmes is 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.359 sufficiently detached from reality to lack criminal intent? How do 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.480 we know if he is indeed insane? Keep in mind 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.679 the insanity is a legal term, not a medical term. 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.760 He would never be diagnosed by a psychiatrist as being insane. 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.520 In other words, the legal concept of insanity is different 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.359 from the medical or psychological concept of mental illness. William 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.800 read again. In fact, most people who are mentally ill 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.480 are quite responsible for their acts and quite competent to 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.560 do various things like go to work and drive a car, 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:15.560 and sign a contract, or or raise their kids. The 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:20.679 point for the insanity defense is is there, as a 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:27.480 result of significant mental illness, an absence of the ability 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.480 two understand what one is doing, understand that it's wrong, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.920 and adhere to the to the right if you will. 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.000 Legal insanity in most jurisdictions boils down to this question, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.439 did the accused understand the difference between right and wrong 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.880 at the time they committed the crime. It's a simple question, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.640 the one that has proven almost impossible at times for lawyers, judges, juries, 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.800 and even psychiatrists answer. The case of James Holmes was 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:10.639 no different. Could listening make you a better parent, a 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.479 better leader, even a better person? Could listening inspire you 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.560 to start something new? There's never been a better time 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.360 to start listening on Audible. Audible has the largest selection 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.200 of audio books on the planet. With Audible, you get 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:31.440 access to an unbeatable selection of audio books, including best sellers, mysteries, thrillers, memoirs, 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.480 and more. 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Get started with a thirty day trial. 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.000 When you go to audible dot com slash thread or 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:20.399 text thread to five hundred, that's audible dot com slash 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.960 thread or text thread to five five hundred and listen 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:30.640 for a change. The mystery of any insanity defense trial 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.919 is what was happening in the defendant's mind at the 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:40.120 time that he committed the crime for for for which 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.960 he's being tried. This is Lincoln Kaplan, a senior research 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.240 scholar at Yale Law School and an expert on the 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:51.200 insanity defense. And you can't get inside someone's head uh 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.200 in in the way you could if if we were 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:58.080 machines and we had tape recorders for brains. The trial 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.080 of James Holmes provides a recent and powerful example of 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.520 the challenges of climbing inside a defendant's brain and some 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:06.600 of the evidence that can be used to decide whether 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.080 they knew the difference between right and wrong. The prosecution 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.240 set out to show that Holmes knew exactly what he 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:16.200 was doing. First, his lengthy preparations for the slaughter did 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:17.920 not seem to be the actions of a man who 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.600 was out of his mind. Homes stockpiled firearms, and thousands 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.639 of rounds of ammunition at his apartment. For weeks, he 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.440 practiced shooting at firing ranges he read up about explosives. 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.679 Holmes also took disturbing selfies of himself. In one taken 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.840 just days before the shooting, Holmes with his hair dyed 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.479 bright orange red, where his black contact lenses and grins 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.280 diabolically into the camera like a comic book villain. The 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.800 prosecution also pointed out another key piece of evidence. The 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.560 public got a first look today at a key piece 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.879 of evidence and James holmes murder trial, a notebook The 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.000 defense hopefuill help prove he was legally insane when he 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.879 opened fire in a Colorado movie theater. Holmes mailed the 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.439 spiral bound notebook to his psychiatrist, Dr. Finnon just hours 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:05.879 before the shooting. It contained about thirty pages of often 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:10.159 disjointed writings and illustrations. William read again. Some of the 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.760 things he wrote look crazy. Some of the things he 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.159 wrote looked like plans for the shooting. Some of the 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:21.320 things he wrote looked like philosophy and thoughts about life, 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.119 including his own life. Homes spelled out his theories of 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:28.000 human capital using logic, math, and stick figure drawings. He 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.800 called it insights into the mind of madness. He tried 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.359 to diagnose his own mental illness and admitted he was 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:38.439 powerless to fix it. He wrote, so anyways, that is 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.920 my mind. It is broken. Neuroscience seemed like the way 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.879 to go, but it didn't pan out. In order to 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:49.280 rehabilitate the broken mind, my soul must be eviscerated. One 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.119 of the things that was in the notebook that was 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.000 very interesting was evidence that he considered a number of 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:58.639 different ways to kill a lot of people a number 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.360 of different venues in including but not limited to movie theaters. 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:08.760 Evidence that he cased the cinema in Aurora carefully to 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.960 find out which of the auditoriums would be the best 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:16.160 one in which to commit the killings. The prosecution emphasized 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.040 how Holmes used the notebook to plan his attack. Defense lawyers, 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.479 on the other hand, argued it was proof of just 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:26.159 how extensive holmes As delusions were. So looking at the 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:30.160 notebook gives us a little bit of a window into 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.960 how he was thinking or believing at a certain time, 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.560 but it really doesn't describe Holmes in any accurate or 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:42.880 consistent way. One cannot look in my opinion at that 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:46.359 notebook and say, oh, here's a person with a severe 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.919 mental illness such as schizophrenia. The evidence was inconclusive on 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:52.320 the subject of Holmes as state of mind, and like 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:55.399 so many insanity defense cases, it came down to the 0:24:55.440 --> 0:25:00.320 insights of expert psychiatric witnesses. Andrea Alden, in order for 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:03.560 you to use your mental illness as a mitigating factor 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:06.520 in a criminal defense, you're obviously having to talk about 0:25:06.560 --> 0:25:09.400 your mental illness in a legal setting, and then you're 0:25:09.440 --> 0:25:13.600