Closing arguments will start Friday in the trial of King Soopers gunman in Colorado
Closing arguments will start Friday in the Colorado trial of King Soopers gunman Ahmad Alissa, with deliberations likely to begin in the afternoon.
Judge Ingrid Bakke gave jurors Thursday off while the court discusses how it will handle jury instructions in the delicate case.
The defense rested Wednesday, followed by one rebuttal witness called by the prosecution. Much of the day was spent on the shooter's mental health and what experts say appear to be his schizophrenia and its effects.
"He would often not speak much to me. Answers to questions would be one or two words maybe. His eye contact also was poor," said forensic psychologist Dr. Joshua Hatfield.
Hatfield was hired by the defense to visit with Alissa, which he did seven times, starting a few days after the shooting at the Boulder grocery store on March 22, 2021. It was during a time when Alissa was not getting active treatment.
"Eye movements, kind of looking around the room, those quick sort of head jerks, those things are indicative possibly of hallucinations," said Hatfield, who said Alissa was so withdrawn be did not respond to most of his inquiries.
"Even some of the more benign questions."
Hatfield came to believe there were symptoms consistent with schizophrenia.
"Someone who is remarkably psychotic, remarkably ill. Yes, that was my initial impression," said Hatfield. He testified about how Alissa would hear voices that were, "mostly yelling." And there were delusions.
"It was pretty apparent that he was paranoid about the FBI, I think there was stuff about chips in his head, bugs in his head, a chip and a key fob," as well as a belief that he was being watched by a camera in his computer, said Hatfield.
The brother of Ahmad Alissa testified that he saw Ahmad the morning of the shooting and he was muttering in a bathroom of the family home in Arvada. He said his brother's mental condition had begun to slide in 2019. He had grown sloppy and disengaged, making mistakes at work at one of the family's restaurants. But he told district attorney Michael Dougherty, "I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert, I'm sorry," when asked if his brother had mental health issues or was functioning at the time of the shootings. He told the court he saw an assault weapon, but figured it was a hobby. Mahmood Alissa said he had seen no reason to try to remove the gun, "Because there was no indication for violence."
The prosecution called as a rebuttal witness a forensic psychologist it hired, Dr. Ian Lamoureux. Lamoureux noted that mental illness is one thing and a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity a step further, requiring knowing right from wrong, which he said some with mental illness can understand.
"It's my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the defendant was able to distinguish right from wrong at that time," said Lamoureux.
Lamoureux read case files and watched video extensively, including video from inside the story during the shooting. He pointed out that Alissa concealed himself then shot and killed the first arriving officer, Eric Talley.
"Law enforcement was law enforcement," said Lamoureux. "That's very important as it demonstrated that he did not have any delusional misidentification syndromes."
Lamoureux said it did not appear Alissa was hearing voices or acting out some demons.
"There were times when the defendant appeared to have wounded a victim, you can tell that victim still was alive and there was a chance that victim may have survived the attack, in all those cases the defendant proceeded to follow up and fired additional shots, often shooting them in the head or shooting them multiple times to ensure they would die."
