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CENTENNIAL, Colo. — No detail of Dr. Raquel Gur’s report on James Holmes’ mental state was too small for George Brauchler to pick apart. The defense attorney spent all of Wednesday criticizing Gur’s professional methods, notes, credibility and opinion on the gunman’s sanity.

Gur is one of the defense’s star witnesses. The psychiatrist declared the shooter legally insane at the time he gunned down an Aurora movie theater, killing 12 and injuring 70 more people. She is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and has performed mental evaluations for other notorious killers, like the Unibomber.

But Brauchler did not let the jury forget that, despite her experience, Gur is not board certified in her field. He also presented inconsistencies between Gur’s initial notes and final report, which was completed six months after Gur’s first meeting with the shooter. The doctor opted not to video record her meetings with the defendant — a common practice in forensic psychiatry — and Brauchler suggested that her notes were sparse. When pushed as to why she didn’t take more notes, Gur said it was due to time limitations.

There is no way to know why the shooter said things to Gur that he didn’t report to any of the other 19 other mental health professionals with whom he met, apart from directly examining Gur under oath.

“He does not repeat the nihilistic delusion of a catastrophe or the world coming to an end to any other mental health professional you’re aware of?” Brauchler asked Gur.

“No,” Gur said.

She also said that, though the shooter knew he was breaking the law, he didn’t necessarily know it was morally wrong.

“He knew that what he was doing was illegal,” Gur said. “But he did not in his state of mind have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and appreciate that societal morals.”

The doctor held fast to her belief that the shooter suffers a severe form of schizophrenia and a delusion that led him to believe he had to kill people. Brauchler insisted that, just before the defendant “shot a six-year-old girl four times,” Holmes showed high-functioning mental capacity. He elaborately planned the event, constructed intricate bombs, continued to workout at the gym and attend college classes, and maintained normal personal hygiene.

“Yes, but it was within a distorted perception of reality,” Gur said, adding that intelligent people with schizophrenia — like the defendant —  function better than mentally ill people with a lower IQ. “He had the capacity to pursue his delusions.”

Brauchler ended the day by listing precautionary actions the defendant took to protect himself and others from his crime. He concealed his plans from others, Brauchler told the court; he covered himself in ballistic body armor to protect himself from police response; and he severed contact with the young woman he was seeing the month of the shooting — in the shooter’s words— “because I didn’t want her to be the girlfriend of a murderer.”

Closing statements are tentatively scheduled for next week. Should the jury find the defendant to be sane, a sentencing trial will follow in order to decide the shooter’s legal fate: life in prison or death. 

Editor’s note: CU News Corps will honor the victims of this tragedy with every post via this graphic.