Jury rejects defense argument that Ahmad Alissa was insane and hearing voices before 2021 shooting.
A gunman who shot and killed 10 people at a Colorado grocery store in 2021 has been convicted of murder and could face life in prison.
On Monday, a jury rejected the defense's argument that Ahmad Alissa, 25, should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defense argued that Alissa had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and could not discern the meaning of his actions when he opened fire at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder.
“This tragedy was born out of illness, not choice,” defense attorney Kathryn Herold told jurors during closing arguments.
Meanwhile, District Attorney Michael Dougherty argued that the nature of the attack showed Alissa was intentional in his actions.
“He's methodical and brutal,” Dougherty told jurors.
Whether Alissa was responsible for the shooting and the details of the attack were never in doubt during the trial, which began earlier this month.
Alissa had started shooting within minutes of arriving at the store's parking lot, killing three people before he went inside. He chased down several of those he shot and searched for others who were hiding.
Prosecutors pointed to those decisions as evidence that Alissa acted sanely during the attack. They also argued that the illegal magazines and steel-armored bullets Alissa was carrying showed the attack was deliberate.
State forensic psychologists said Alissa's fear of being arrested or killed by police showed he was sane at the time of the killings. Still, the psychologists said they could not fully trust their finding, an argument seized upon by the defense.
Alissa had repeatedly told psychologists that he had heard what he described as “killer voices,” but did not provide further details. Alissa’s family also reported that he had become withdrawn and spoke little, and that he had become increasingly paranoid and heard voices in the years leading up to the attack. They said he had not received any mental health treatment before the attack.
State forensic psychologists also concluded that voices likely played a role in the attack and that they did not believe it would have happened if she had not been mentally ill.
Still, Colorado law draws a distinction between mental illness and insanity. It defines the latter as a mental illness so severe that a person is unable to distinguish right from wrong.
The verdict capped a trial filled with harrowing testimony from survivors of the attack.
One survivor, an emergency room doctor, said she climbed onto a shelf and hid among bags of potato chips.
A pharmacist at the grocery store testified that she heard Alissa say, “This is funny” at least three times as he fired around the store with a semi-automatic pistol resembling an AR-15 rifle.
Prosecutors said Alissa, who was born in Syria and immigrated to the United States with his family as a child, had researched locations for possible attacks. However, they did not provide any other motive.
