Alleged Colorado cinema
gunman James Holmes has been formally charged with one of America's
worst mass shootings.
The 24-year-old faces 12 charges of first-degree murder, 12
charges of murder with extreme indifference and 116 counts of attempted
murder.
A dozen people died and 58 were injured after a gunman opened
fire at random in the crowded movie theatre near Denver.
As of Sunday, 10 victims of the 20 July shooting remained in
hospital, four of them in a critical condition.
Ashley Moser, the critically injured mother of a six-year-old
girl killed in the rampage in Aurora, has suffered a miscarriage, her
family said on Saturday.
Explosive device charge
The judge had banned cameras from Monday's hearing, so there
were no pictures of the defendant, who appeared dazed during his first
court appearance last week.
Among
the 142 criminal charges on the charge sheet, Mr Holmes faces one
count of possessing an explosive or incendiary device.
He allegedly wired his apartment with enough explosives to
destroy the entire building had they been detonated. It took authorities
several days to dismantle the booby traps.
Court documents filed on Friday by defence lawyers said the
suspect had been under the care of a psychiatrist at the University of
Colorado Denver, where he had been in the process of dropping out as a
neuroscience PhD student.
Monday's hearing was also expected to address a package -
discovered in a campus mailroom three days after the shootings - which
the suspect addressed to that psychiatrist, Dr Lynne Fenton.
The package reportedly contained descriptions of an attack,
including drawings of a stick-figure gunman shooting people.
The defence team is seeking a court order requiring
prosecutors to immediately turn over all evidence relating to the
seizure of a package, citing doctor-patient privilege.
They have also lodged a motion to find out who leaked the
existence of the package to the media, which they say could jeopardise
the suspect's right to a fair trial.
Prosecutors have said it will be several weeks before a
decision is made on whether or not to seek the death penalty in the
case.
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