Dr. Jonathan Woodcock (Photo: CU-Denver Department of Neurology website)
For two days this week, prosecutor George Brauchler rattled the foundation of Woodcock’s professional opinions with observable vigor. Woodcock is a practicing neurologist and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver medical campus — the same school the shooter attended months before he killed 12 people and injured 70. After a lengthy voir dire, he was admitted to the court as an expert in the fields of neurology and psychiatry.
Woodcock spent a total of three hours and 45 minutes interviewing the defendant on two different occasions. Court-appointed forensic psychiatrist Dr. William Reid spent 22 video-recorded hours assessing the shooter and believes the shooter to be legally sane but mentally ill, as does the other court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Jeff Metzner.
Through an intense line of questioning Friday, Brauchler criticized the minimal amount of time Woodcock spent reading other psychiatrists’ reports and reviewing all evidence available before writing a final report on the shooter’s mental state. Brauchler noted that Woodcock used the “Textbook of Forensic Pyschiatry, 2nd Revised Edition” to guide him in his evaluation of the shooter, particularly a list of suggested questions “to help evaluate mental state at (the) time of (an) offense”.
“You didn’t do all the things on the checklist?” Brauchler asked Woodcock.
“I did what the checklist requires,” Woodcock said, “Which is to review all the evidence. There’s no way I was able to review all the evidence so I had to decide what the most relevant evidence was and whether, based upon the evidence that I thought was most relevant, with the exceptions I’ve noted, whether that allowed me the sufficient background to reach the conclusions I did.”
From the “Textbook of Forensic Psychiatry, 2nd revised edition”
Woodcock’s vocal tone was audibly irritated at times, and the judge twice gave Woodcock direct instructions to provide answers that appropriately corresponded to the questions asked.
The debate centered on the shooter’s state of mind leading up to and at the time of the crime. Brauchler questioned Woodcock on what he knew about that time period.
“As far as you know…(the defendant) knew unequivocally that he’d be going to theater number nine at the Century 21 theater and trying to murder everyone in it, right?” Brauchler asked.
“On July 12,” Woodcock said, “He was psychotic, he was delusional, and his behavior, even then, was lost in that psychotic state.”
The psychiatrist kept his interviews brief with the mass killer, he said, because he already knew the answers to many of the questions on that checklist via information he read in police and psychiatric reports. Unlike some of the other psychiatrists who interviewed Holmes, Woodcock opted not to speak to the shooter’s family.
Woodcock testified with confidence that, “It’s (not) possible to opine on (the shooter’s) sanity if one doesn’t have a good understanding of his psychopathology.”
He insisted that what he did review sufficed in forming his opinion of the shooter’s mental state.
That list of sample questions to help evaluate a mental state in the case of the insanity defense were published by Dr. Phillip Resnick, the director of forensic psychiatry at Case Western. Resnick is known internationally for his expertise in the detection of malingered (faked) mental illness.
Resnick testified in the trial of Andrea Yates, a Texas woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, and he provided a professional opinion supporting her insanity. Yates was found not-guilty by reason of insanity.
In defending his choice of the sample questions he used in evaluating Holmes’ mental state, Woodcock gave credit to Resnick as a well-respected psychiatrist and said he’d taken Resnick’s courses. Resnick, the author of the how-to guide Woodcock used, is expected to be called to the stand by the prosecution during its rebuttal next month.
Brauchler’s cross-examination of Woodcock seemed to engage the jurors, who had what Judge Carlos Samour called “a book of questions” for the doctor. Some of the jurors’ questions, written as notes and read aloud by the judge, included:
“From an ethical standpoint, do you stand by your decision/opinion of insanity based on two hours of interviewing and reviewing others’ reports, not viewing everything on your own, and basing your decision partially, subjectively, picking and choosing information from others’ reports, especially with the nature of the possible outcome for the defendant?”
— (Ruled inappropriate to ask)
“If someone is suffering from catatonia, is it possible, in your opinion, for a person to “schedule” these episodes?”
— “It’s possible,” Woodcock said.
“When you reviewed the police materials, did you see his calendar, on July 19 or 20 marked with a symbol when you considered that the defendant did not know the date of the event (or did not know when he would perform the shooting)?”
— “I do recall that information,” Woodcock said. “I think he was psychotic at that time and assessing his decision making capacity at that time and through the time that this happened, I think it’s really obscured by the density of his psychosis… I think on July 12 he was psychotic and certainly very impaired, and I think he was at the time this happened.”
Jury deliberation may start as early as July 20, which would mark exactly three years to the date of the Aurora theater shooting.
Editor’s note: CU News Corps will honor the victims of this tragedy with every post via this graphic.
