CENTENNIAL — The man accused of shooting and killing a doctor and wounding two women — including his wife — in an April 2016 pleaded not guilty on Thursday to all counts.
entered his plea in Arapahoe County District Court before District Judge Carlos Samour Jr., with his attorneys saying they plan to introduce expert evidence that he suffered or suffers from an undisclosed mental health condition.
The plea comes as prosecutors , who is charged with 14 counts, including first-degree murder, in the April 4, 2016, shootings. The 46-year-old is also accused of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and attempted first-degree murder of a peace officer.
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler now has 63 days to decide about seeking capital punishment for Lyons, saying he plans to review a mass of information from Lyons’ defense team before coming to a conclusion. He cautioned that he’s in no rush and wants to carefully weigh the decision.
“We want to be right,” Brauchler said after court Thursday. “We want to be just and we want to be patient.”
Brauchler said he has been in contact with the victims in the case about the death penalty, but declined to talk about those conversations.
“We’ve had that contact, and we’ve had that input,” he said.
Brauchler’s office , who was convicted of killing 12 and injuring another 70 at an . He is , an Arapahoe County man and whose case remains pending.
“I can’t tell you that, that experience has turned me off completely to the idea of pursuing (the death penalty) or that we should pursue it more often,” Brauchler said of the theater shooting case. “It’s not like that. I have a sense of what this community is and what they will tolerate and I also have an appreciation and respect for what the law limits me to.”
DA talks about death penalty after Kevin Lyons plea hearing
— 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office (@DA18th)
Because his attorneys plan to introduce mental health evidence at trial, Lyons was ordered by Judge Samour to undergo an evaluation at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo. That process is expected to be complete by the middle of June, at the earliest.
Samour asked Lyons’ public defenders what specific mental health condition they planned to present evidence on, but his attorneys said they couldn’t exactly say. “That’s being laid out by our experts,” said James Karbach, head of the Arapahoe Office of the Colorado State Public Defender.
By planning to introduce expert testimony about Lyons’ mental health, his attorneys are signaling they might seek to show that Lyons could not form the mental elements of intent or deliberation alleged in the charges he faces. However, the defense is not a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
This is not a not guilty by reason of insanity plea and Lyons' lawyers did not specify what mental health condition they will present
— Jesse Aaron Paul ☀ (@JesseAPaul)
Lyons is accused of unleashing a hail of gunfire on his Centennial neighborhood last spring, killing as the physician ran out of his home to help two women who had been wounded in the onslaught, including Lyons’ wife, Elizabeth.
Authorities identified the second wounded woman as neighbor Laurie Juergens.
Lyons had been acting “weird” and saying “crazy stuff” for days before the alleged shootings, his wife told investigators.
Lyons’ competency came into question when he made several loud outbursts. Samour, in the days after the rampage, ordered Lyons to be evaluated and in June .
Arapahoe County prosecutors, however, in a motion filed before a September hearing, said Lyons “exhibited no signs or symptoms of an active serious mental illness,” during an earlier evaluation at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo.
“In short, CMHIP found that the defendant was a malingerer,” the district attorney’s filing said.
Lyons was subdued at Thursday’s hearing, saying only “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” in response to Samour’s questions. He was handcuffed and wearing a sport jacket and slacks as he sat beside his attorneys.
Lyons is being held without bail at the Arapahoe County jail.
