The judge in the Capital Gazette shooting case will decide in one week whether the alleged shooter will be granted additional time to consider an insanity plea.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys met at the Anne Arundel County courthouse Thursday and agreed to reconvene April 4 to hear Judge Laura Ripken’s decision.
Defense attorneys for Jarrod Ramos, who has pleaded not guilty, have been asking Ripken to extend the deadline for considering an insanity plea.
They argued that prosecutors gave them inadequate documentation, although Ripken disagreed with that, saying prosecutors provided “significantly more” information than the law requires.
A trial is currently scheduled for June.
If Ramos goes with an insanity defense, he would be able to argue that he was not criminally responsible for the shooting because he could not understand that what he was doing was a crime.
Prosecutors are seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole in the June 2018 attack.
Police said Ramos used a shotgun to blast his way into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis and then fatally shot five employees.
Ramos has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Ann Smith and Wendi Winters. He also has been charged with attempted murder and assault related to other people in the newspaper office at the time of the attack and gun crimes.
Prosecutors said Ramos carefully planned the attack and barricaded the rear exit of the office to prevent people from escaping.
Ramos, of Laurel, Maryland, held a longtime grudge against the newspaper. The Capital Gazette had written about Ramos pleading guilty to harassing a former high school classmate in 2011, and Ramos unsuccessfully sued the writer and the newspaper’s publisher for defamation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
