Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes sits in court in Centennial, Colo., on Tuesday, June 4, 2013. Holmes was allowed to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.CENTENNIAL, Colo. – A judge accepted James Holmes’ long-awaited plea of not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday and ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation – an examination that could be a decisive factor in whether the Colorado theater shooting suspect is convicted and sentenced to die.
The judge also granted prosecutors access to a hotly contested notebook that Holmes sent to a psychiatrist shortly before the July 20 rampage, which left 12 people dead and 70 injured in a bloody, bullet-riddled movie theater in suburban Denver.
Taken together, the three developments marked a major step forward in the 10-month-old case, which at times has inched along through thickets of legal arguments or veered off on tangents.
Holmes faces more than 160 counts of murder and attempted murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
He will now be examined by the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, but it’s not certain when the evaluation will begin or how long it will take. Hospital officials have said that before they meet with Holmes, they want to review evidence in the case, which prosecutors said totals nearly 40,000 pages.