
James Holmes
Centennnial, Colorado - The suspect in the Colorado movie theater killings returns to court this week for a hearing that might be the closest thing to a trial the victims and their families will get to see.
James Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, is charged with killing 12 people and injuring 70 by opening fire in a darkened theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora last July.
At a weeklong preliminary hearing starting Monday, prosecutors will outline their case against Holmes, the first official public disclosure of their evidence. The judge will then determine whether to send the case to trial.
Legal analysts say that evidence appears to be so strong that Holmes may well accept a plea agreement before trial. In such cases, the preliminary hearing can set the stage for a deal by letting each side assess the other's strengths and weaknesses, said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Preliminary hearings "are often the first step to resolving the case, a mini-trial so both sides can see the writing on the wall," Levenson said.
Judges rarely throw out a case at this stage because prosecutors must only meet a "probable cause" standard - much lower than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard for a guilty verdict at trial, said Mimi Wesson, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School.
Holmes, who faces more than 160 counts including first-degree murder and attempted murder, could have waived his right to a preliminary hearing, allowing lawyers on both sides to prepare for trial. But defense lawyers sometimes go through with the hearing because it gives them a clearer picture of prosecution evidence.
"In this case, I think it likely that the genuine purpose of the hearing would be information-gathering by the defense," Wesson said.
Comment: "Adult sexual attraction to children is part of the continuum of human sexuality" ... And yet the article's launchpad is the Savile scandal and all that unearthed (or made public anyway) about 'pedophiles' (ahem, psychopaths) in power in the UK. To begin with a reference to a psychopathic predator like Savile and then launch into a discussion about adult attraction to children misses the point, and gives a false impression of the real problem. A more objective psychological basis for understanding the type of 'pedophilia' apparent in the likes of Jimmy Savile is that it is symptomatic of an overall character disorder that places its carrier within the psychopathic spectrum. These 'pedophiles' are wired differently because they are psychopaths, not because they are pedophiles. Although humans are routinely subject to deviant thought patterns in an increasingly degenerate world, there is nothing human about being a sexual deviant and predator.
It is interesting to read some of the comments below this article on The Guardian. Most readers focused on the 'grey area' issues surrounding sexual relationships between young and older teenagers, apparently completely oblivious to the real hardcore pedocriminality that routinely implicates some very famous names in very senior positions of power in all Western countries and beyond. Whatever about the morality of 'consensual' sex between a 20-year-old and a 15-year-old, at the rotten heart of the problem lies institutionalised pedophilia on a level most could not even imagine.
Read Caricature of Love by Hervey Cleckley and Beyond Dutroux to understand the true nature of those who predate on children and other vulnerable members of society.