Did James Holmes put up an act in the trial ?

My answer is ,  obviously yes ,  to get away from the death sentence .

And not a good performance , i might add .

I think his journal was an act as well. If you compare his with E&D's or other mass murderers it sounds somewhat manufactured to look as batshit insane as possible. I mean really; he scribbled 'Why?' over 247 times on eight pages.

Also, yawn:
"So anyways, that’s my mind. It is broken, I tried to fix it. I made it my sole conviction, but using something that’s broken to fix itself proved insurmountable. Neuroscience seemed like the way to go but it didn’t pan out.

In order to rehabilitate the broken mind my soul must be eviscerated. I could not sacrifice my soul to have a ‘normal’ mind. Despite my biological shortcomings I have fought and fought. Always defending against predetermination and the fallibility of man.

There is one more battle to fight with life. To face death, embrace the longstanding hatred of mankind and overcome all fear in certain death."

I dont know...he has a pretty strong family history of schizophrenia. He might have been putting it on a little at the jail, when he was going crazy in his cell, but in my experience it looked real enough. But I think anyone who does this kind of thing is in someway batshit insane.

Him sending his journals to his psychologist seems a little dubious to me.

Not that it matters, that head-case got what he wanted. He increased his personal worth by killing people, and he gets to live.

Even if he faked his particular illness, you can't deny there's something wrong with the guy just based on what on what he did. If you kill 12 people, you're already on the edge of human experience and thinking.

He has been on serious medication for a few years before the trial. As well as smashing his head into a concrete wall & falling backwards from his bed onto a concrete floor.

There has probably been some amount of damage done to his brain over that time thus resulting in his lack of emotion or response during the trial.

From a guy who was going for a Doctorate in Neuroscience to a mass shooter ...

This topic is pretty interesting, it's a shame that it hasn't gotten more attention.
Overall, I don't exactly know what to think. I'm no expert on mental disorders and shit.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your posts, you don't sugarcoat anything and you make me laugh.

I'm not an expert on mental illness either, but I think he's smart enough to be able to research a disease and be able to convey the hallmarks of the disease. I do agree that he and others who commit these acts aren't functioning normal, mentally. If there's a history of schizophrenia, he might have that. I have no idea to what extent, though.

The worst thing was when he was describing the murders to the psychologist. He could have been talking about an adjustable rate mortgage for all the emotion he had. He had a flat affect, didn't really seem disturbed at all about the crime or the victims, and just seemed blasé about the whole thing.

I don't believe ALL of it was an act, though I do believe some of it was.

The 1,000 yard stare - could be explained by side effects of medication if he had been placed on them or a response to the voices in his own head if he was actively psychotic.

Lack of emotion could be attributed to the "flat affect" that comes with schizophrenia.

The journal - I'm not sure. On the one hand, the feelings make sense in a way that the jumbled thoughts of a mentally ill person don't make sense to anyone other than them. On the other, that he sent them to his therapist does show at least some presence of mind.

His behavior in jail , while more extreme than some I've seen, I can't put out of a realm of probability.

Mental illness is a complex thing, and it's hard for me to say whether he was faking it or not. Especially since he had been diagnosed prior to the shooting. I'd have to know more about his previously observed patterns of behavior while actively ill to say much of anything for certain.

HOLMES ON TRIAL