A Baltimore County man accused of shooting to death a moviegoer at an Owings Mills theater this summer is proceeding with an insanity plea, and is set to have a court-ordered brain scan next week.
Mujtaba Jabbar, 24, is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center in connection with the June shooting at the Loews Valley Center 9, in which he allegedly stood up in the middle of “X-Men: The Last Stand” and opened fire on the audience, according to court records.
Paul Schrum, 62, a husband and father from Pikesville, was killed in the shooting. Jabbar walked out of the theater, set the gun down on a counter and sat in the lobby as authorities arrived, according to police and court records.
Jabbar?s attorney declined to comment on the MRI or Jabbar?s plea that he was not criminally responsible at the time of the shooting by reason of insanity.
Donald Daneman said he “can?t discuss this case with anybody. I?m not authorized.”
But letters in Jabbar?s Baltimore County Circuit Court file show that a doctor retained by the defense met with Jabbar at the detention center and recommended the brain scan to look for any structural abnormalities. A psychiatric exam also has been ordered because of Jabbar?s insanity plea.
Attorneys who have worked on similar cases said a brain scan can provide forceful and tangible evidence that a defendant?s mental health problems either kept him from understanding the law or from obeying it.
“Reasonable forensic psychiatrists can disagree” on a defendant?s mental afflictions, said attorney Andrew Alperstein. “Obviously, if there are objective findings, like findings on a brain scan, that can only help the defendant.”
The defense could use those findings at any stage in the court proceedings, Alperstein said: To argue initially that Jabbar is incompetent to stand trial, or if that were unsuccessful, to show that he was insane at the time of the shooting ? or should the case come to it, in support of a lighter punishment at sentencing.
“This is not a whodunit ? this is a why it was done,” said defense attorney Warren Brown. “When you proceed by way of not criminally responsible, you?re in effect saying, ?okay, I did it, but there were extenuating circumstances.? ”
If convicted, Jabbar faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the State?s Attorney?s Office.
