With the start of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting trial just days away, the judge has once again denied a motion to move the case out of Arapahoe County, Colorado.
"Transferring a highly publicized case like this one from one large county to another within the State of Colorado would be as useful as installing a screen door on a submarine," District Court Judge Carlos Samour wrote Thursday.
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Attorneys defending James Holmes, who faces 165 charges for the July 20, 2012 shooting, have repeatedly asked the judge to move the case. They argued that media coverage had tainted the jury pool.
Samour's order dismissed that argument, citing the recent selection of 19 women and 5 men to serve on the jury.
"If the defense genuinely believed that every potential juror in Arapahoe County is automatically disqualified, it presumably would have challenged every prospective juror for cause," he wrote.
Elsewhere in his 35-page order, Samour commented that the court has taken "painstaking measures" in the jury selection process. He reminds the attorneys that a total of 9,000 summonses were originally sent out in pursuit of the 12 unbiased jurors and 12 unbiased alternates.
He also mentioned the "extraordinary" steps the court has taken to close hearings and suppress documents that could reveal "the most important aspects" of what will be argued at trial -- the defendant's mental state.
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