The man who fatally shot 10 people in 2021 at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store was found guilty of murder on Monday, with jurors rejecting his lawyers’ argument that mental illness made him unable to distinguish right from wrong.
The verdict followed about two weeks of testimony that focused on the mind-set of the gunman, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, at the time of the shooting. Mr. Alissa, now 25, was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack; his lawyers admitted that he carried out the shooting, but said that he was so unwell at the time that he could not know that what he was doing was wrong.
The shooting on March 22, 2021, took place at a King Soopers supermarket, less than a week after another mass shooting, in Atlanta. The victims, ranging in age from 20 to 65, included the first police officer to arrive at the scene, store employees and shoppers.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours over two days before coming to their unanimous conclusion. Having been convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder, including the murder of a police officer, Mr. Alissa by law must be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The judge said Mr. Alissa would be sentenced soon after the verdict on Monday.
Mr. Alissa, who has been in custody since the shooting, wore a striped dress shirt and khaki pants in court on Friday. He stood when the jurors entered and shook his head several times. While the guilty verdicts were being read, Mr. Alissa bit his nails and conferred with members of his defense team.
In addition to the 10 murder counts, Mr. Alissa was also convicted of a series of other charges, including 38 counts of attempted murder and six counts of possessing a large capacity gun magazine.
At closing arguments on Friday, Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney, said Mr. Alissa had planned his attack and been “determined” and “focused” as he entered the parking lot of the King Soopers store and began firing at his victims. Prosecutors had the burden of proving that Mr. Alissa was sane, meaning he was able to know right from wrong.
Mr. Dougherty said Mr. Alissa’s actions that day, including his eventual surrender to the police, were indicators of sanity. He showed jurors evidence that Mr. Alissa had researched other mass shootings and that he had chosen not to shoot one older shopper. He also noted the testimony of a psychologist who met with Mr. Alissa and said he had seemed disappointed to learn that Colorado no longer imposes the death penalty.
“He knew it was wrong,” Mr. Dougherty said, describing Mr. Alissa’s interaction with the psychologist. “Now he’s asking to be punished.”
But Mr. Alissa’s lawyers said that he was having serious symptoms of psychosis when the shooting took place, and that he had been hearing shouting voices and growing paranoid as his illness went untreated.
“This tragedy was born out of illness, not out of choice,” one of his lawyers, Kathryn Herold, told the jurors. “Mr. Alissa committed these crimes because he was psychotic and delusional.”
Mr. Alissa did not testify at the trial, but jurors heard testimony from witnesses to the shooting, psychologists and Mr. Alissa’s family members. His mother said that his mental health had appeared to decline over the years but that he continued working at a restaurant the family owns.
Under Colorado law, people can be found not guilty by reason of insanity if a jury decides that their minds were “so diseased or defective” at the time of the crime that they could not know their actions were wrong. In Colorado, the burden is on the prosecution to prove that the defendant was sane at the time of the crimes.
The verdict recalled another high-profile case in Colorado, when jurors rejected the insanity defense of James Holmes, who killed 12 people in a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012. Mr. Holmes, too, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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