anti-abortionist, and shot at respond i responding officer, aed on the the layperson, the person, layperson says, the he must have known. and you have is honed right in the insanity defense which is often misunderstood, was he aware of the wrongfulness of his actions, and that is not a test of whether you personally believed what you were doing is morally justified, but it is a are you aware that what society deems you are doing is wrong. so if you kill a body and hide it and then run away, you know it is justified, be you does society deem it is wrong? and so if he has made any statements whatsoever to the investiga investigators, those will be shown by the prosecutors that he had some awareness that what he was doing is wrong, and even if
be very psychotic and not know what you did? believe that you didn t do this or somebody else did. it that did not work for james holmes when he shot and killed those people, when he heard those people and ran away and tried to secret himself away from that location. but that s why insanity defenses are a case-by-case analysis because mental illness manifests itself in an infinite number of forms and each has to be distilled down into an essential inquiry. did they understand the nature or consequences or did they appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions? there s so much more as we learn more about this case. thank you for stepping in so quickly. i know that was a lot of information to process, gain saul gail saltz, danny cevallos, thank you. coming up, the police officers known as the freddie gray six are heading to court this week and their fellow officers are having to work overtime. find out why. diabetes, steady is exciting.
jury decided, yes, he committed all these offenses but they will be a absolve him because he was insane at the time. assuming that the jury didn t find that he was insane the jury will then make a determination of whether or not he will get the death penalty or face life in prison. but this was a well thought out crime. the question is whether or not he appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct when he did it. and that s always been a thorny issue in courtrooms. you make a great point. the jurors will first indicate on the forms whether holmes is guilty or not guilty on any count that they find him not guilty they must then write whether it was because they found him to be insane. the way we re told the colorado forms are listed. so the fact that they have at least so far found all of these first-degree murder counts and checked them guilty, the second box is not checked and therefore perhaps you re
so they re looking at those jurors to find some guilt. i think the prosecution through the premeditation and planning and so much else certainly gave them a basis to say guilty. right. so danny, it would seem that this insanity plea would be a tough sell given that kind of premeditation and planning and given that evidence shows that he had the wherewithal of determining whether something was a good or bad idea trying to hide it. overall insanity defenses are not usually successful but each and every one of them is a case-by-case analysis because they ultimately boil down to a battle of the experts. those experts are giving scientific testimony about an issue of law that must ultimately be decided by a jury of laypeople and the ultimate question is often did he understand the nature and consequences of what he did or did he appreciate the wrongfulness. and wrongfulness it s important to note it doesn t matter that i personally may think something
he spoke in the interview very clear answers and now this? there are a couple issues here, don. number one, the nature of the crime loenends itself to a posse insanity defense. not only that, but we may be looking at an incompetency issue here. insanity deals with at the time of the crime, did he not understand the nature and consequences or did he not appreciate the wrongfulness. incompetency is a different issue. there are many cases where you here word of an insanity defense because they say well, this is somebody just trying to get out of a crime. but one of the factors here that jumps out right away is the senselessness of the crime. the randomness of the crime. there was no real motive apparent from the crime. they didn t know each other. so we may be seeing not only an insanity defense, but a claim of