Reiff said it was a truly an “awful case for the victims and their family and the community.” She also said it was one of the most definitive cases where she’s represented a defendant who truly met the standard of insanity, rather than being mentally ill. “He was legally insane at the time of the crimes,” Hearn said while testifying earlier this week. Hearn diagnosed Amaya with having schizophrenia after interviewing him Nov. “The only issue for the jury was whether the prosecution had proven sanity beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said. The jury had an extremely tough decision, she said, but they rightfully applied the required standards. “At the end of the day, there was only one expert opinion from the court’s doctor on the issue of sanity, and that was that he was legally insane,” Reiff said. He wasn’t paid by the prosecution or the defense. John Hearn, a forensic psychiatrist who is among the mental health experts contracted by the state government to undertake evaluations at the state mental hospital in Pueblo. Thea Reiff, one of the public defenders on Amaya’s defense team, said the key witness in the case was Dr. “There were people crying in the jury room. “At least half of the (jurors) felt it wasn’t justice for the family,” Mitchell said. The toughest part for Mitchell and others was reaching a verdict of not guilty given the fact that the Lopezes were killed and their boys orphaned.
The difficult part, Mitchell said, was putting personal feelings aside and abiding by the judge’s instructions to base their decision strictly on the evidence. They enacted a scenario where an investigator contacted Amaya on the phone before an arrest was made. The jury went over evidence on a chalkboard. They were determined to reach a verdict and not be a hung jury that couldn’t reach a conclusion. Mitchell credited the jury with working through the evidence and taking their responsibility very seriously. Seven people felt Amaya was guilty and five felt he was not guilty as deliberations started. “We were split almost 50-50 as soon as we went into the jury room,” Mitchell said. The jury started deliberations at about 1 p.m. “What everybody had a hard time with was the reasonable doubt thing,” Mitchell said. Amaya had to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which meant he had to be found sane. A juror from the Roaring Fork Valley, Joe Mitchell, said the case was extremely frustrating because the burden of proof was on the prosecution, led by Chief Deputy District Attorney Joe Kirwan.
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