Perspective:

In the 98 days since, guns have killed at least 2,244 more people.

Mapping the Dead: Gun Deaths Since Sandy Hook

Posted: 03/22/2013 6:07 pm EST | Updated: 03/24/2013 8:03 pm EST

 

James Holmes Trial Update: Prosecutors Reject Guilty Plea Offer From Aurora Massacre Suspect
By Dan Elliot & P. Soloman Banda, Associated Press, March 29, 2013

DENVER — Prosecutors in the Colorado theater massacre case have rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, saying the proposal can't be considered genuine because the defense has repeatedly refused to give them information needed to evaluate it.

No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said in a scathing court document Thursday, and one "is extremely unlikely based on the present information available to the prosecution." [....]

Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor who is now an adjunct professor at the University of Denver's law school, said prosecutors clearly do not want to agree to a plea deal without knowing whether Holmes' attorneys could mount a strong mental health defense.

"One of the issues the prosecution needs to look at is, is there a likelihood that doctors, and then a jury, could find that James Holmes was insane at the time of the crime?" she said.

Prosecutors also criticized comments to The Associated Press by Doug Wilson, who heads the state public defenders' office. [....]

For more see The Denver Post: Aurora DA "extremely unlikely" to OK guilty plea by James Holmes.

Earlier the defense had been probing the possibilities of pleading insanity for an extended time (with many complicating factors) but in mid-March the judge ruled that "truth serum" could be used in that event which made such a plea quite risky.

Jail interview with James Goh, shooter at 2012 Oikos University shooting in Oakland, by a Korean-American writer researching school shootings:

That Other School Shooting
By Jay Caspian Kang, New York Times Magazine, March 28/31, 2013

On April 2 last year, a 43-year-old former nursing student named One L. Goh walked into Oikos University in Oakland, Calif., with a .45-caliber handgun. He killed six people and wounded three others, then exited the building and shot and killed Tshering Bhutia, a former classmate, in the school’s parking lot. Goh then climbed into Bhutia’s car and drove to a Safeway in the nearby city of Alameda, where he ultimately surrendered to police.

Five days later, I went to see Goh at the Santa Rita jail in Dublin, Calif., 25 miles south of Oakland. [.....]

Goh told me that his relationship with his father was mostly nonexistent, but that he cooked dinner for him every Wednesday night. Then, with a look of great annoyance, he immediately changed his assessment. “You cannot find one unlucky thing in my childhood,” he said. “I have been raised pretty good.

“But I’m a loner,” Goh continued. “I do not have the skills to deal with other people. I cannot do things that other people do.” When I asked him to elaborate, he said, “My entire life, I cannot do things other people do.” I asked for an example of something he could not do, and Goh rubbed his face with the heel of his palm and squeezed his eyes shut. When he reopened them, he was staring straight at me. “Like lying,” he said.

I asked if he had any fond memories of his childhood in Korea. Goh nodded and said that his life there had been different and that he had become a loner only after his family came to the United States.

He stared down at a stack of papers he had brought with him. Some indecipherable emotion — something close to irritation — passed through his face, and he squinted and slightly opened his mouth. In a slow, considered cadence, he said, “Let me assure you, whatever the situation I was in, I always tried to find the better way.”

Then he paused and looked down at his papers again and said emphatically: “But not that time. Not that time. I was trapped.”

I asked if he was sorry for what he had done. “I very much regret what happened,” Goh said. “I wish it hadn’t happened that way. I’m really sorry to society, Korean society and the families of the victims.” [.....]