Suspect in Colorado Springs Shooting Can Be Tried for Hate Crimes, Judge Says

COLORADO SPRINGS — The suspect in the mass shooting that killed five people and injured 17 at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub can be tried for hate crimes, a judge ruled Thursday.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them, is facing more than 300 charges in connection with the November shooting at Club Q, including first-degree murder and crimes motivated by bias.

Judge Michael McHenry ruled that there was enough evidence to hold a trial for Mx. Aldrich, and that Mx. Aldrich would remain in jail without bond. Judge McHenry also set an arraignment date for Mx. Aldrich for May 30, when a trial will likely be scheduled.

Prosecutors presented evidence that they said showed the suspect had an aversion to the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

Defense lawyers said their client was not motivated by hate. They added that their client took medications for schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and anxiety. The lawyers also said that unlike mass shootings in Buffalo and El Paso, in which the gunmen had written lengthy screeds against specific minority groups, Mx. Aldrich had not written against the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

The motivations in the case could be pivotal, since a conviction on hate crime charges could affect sentencing. Mx. Aldrich could face life in prison without parole if convicted on the first-degree murder charges alone.

Joseph Archambault, a defense lawyer, said that Mx. Aldrich had expressed remorse after the shooting.

“It does not excuse it, but it is categorically different from people who target a group,” Mr. Archambault said.

Defense lawyers asked Judge McHenry to give them four months before the arraignment to perform psychological evaluations on Mx. Aldrich. Prosecutors proposed two months. The judge decided on about three.

Anticipating the possibility that the defense could make an insanity plea, the judge told defense lawyers that such a plea would need to be made at the arraignment and said he gave the defense ample time for psychological evaluations needed to prevent delaying the case.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit on Thursday, Mx. Aldrich sat in a courtroom packed for a second day with survivors of the shooting and family members of the victims.

Ashtin Gamblin, who survived being shot nine times that night, said she was grateful the case was moving toward a trial.

“Because this monster needs to be put away,” Ms. Gamblin said afterward, adding that she felt a “sense of relief” that the hate crime charges “were going to stick.”

“There’s no getting around that to me,” Ms. Gamblin said of the hate crime charges.

In the hearing the previous day, prosecutors presented evidence saying that Mx. Aldrich had expressed anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments to friends and that Mx. Aldrich chose to shoot up the only L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub out of more than 50 bars in a 2.5-mile radius.

Mr. Archambault said that just because Mx. Aldrich opened fire on an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub did not mean that Mx. Aldrich intended to target members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

“Any fight in a men’s room is a fight against men,” Mr. Archambault said. “That’s not what the statute says.”

But in a news conference after the hearing on Thursday, Michael Allen, the district attorney for Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District, said that a recent change in Colorado’s statute for bias-motivated crimes allowed prosecutors to pursue hate crime charges against Mx. Aldrich.

“It used to be that we had to prove that somebody acted specifically for those reasons,” Mr. Allen said. “But the wording was changed that we only have to prove that somebody acted either wholly or in part by their bias towards a particular group.”

On another issue, both sides will meet before the judge in March to decide whether surveillance footage from the night of the shooting can be made public.