Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on Tuesday that substantial resources would flow into the investigation and criminal case against the 21-year-old man suspected of killing 10 people at a Boulder grocery store.

“A case of this magnitude, with so many victims and so much tragedy, will get every possible resource devoted to it,” said John Walsh, a former U.S. Attorney for Colorado. “The fact that the identity of the shooter may be known makes no difference.”

The case against the suspect will likely proceed to trial, given Colorado’s elimination of the death penalty in 2020 and the corresponding incentive to plead guilty. The federal government still maintains capital punishment, which will become a factor if U.S. prosecutors bring terrorism or hate crime charges, depending upon what the government learns of the suspect.

Craig L. Truman, a Denver defense attorney whose clients have included those accused of homicide, described the detailed portrait of the suspect’s life both sides would try to compile.

“The first record about you is your birth certificate. The last record about you is your jail booking. Anything that’s in writing, I want everything in between,” he said.

It is important, Truman said, for a forensic psychiatrist and psychologist to examine the suspect. School records, job records and statements from people acquainted with the defendant would help his attorney determine “who this guy is, what makes him click.”

Barring separate charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty will handle the case. His office declined a request to speak about the proceedings, but people familiar with Dougherty described him as fully up to the task.

“I am confident that Michael will bring his decades of experience to bear to ensure that this tragic case is thoroughly and fairly investigated, while at the same time ensuring that the victims and their families are treated with the utmost respect,” said Amy Padden, a deputy district attorney in the Fifth Judicial District of Clear Creek, Eagle, Lake and Summit counties. “He has a very talented and dedicated staff who will ensure that this case receives the attention that it deserves.”

Dougherty was a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office at the time of the 9/11 terror attacks, before he was recruited to run a project in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to review DNA evidence of convicted defendants – leading to one man’s exoneration for murder. After serving in the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Jefferson and Gilpin counties, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper appointed him as Boulder’s head prosecutor in 2018.

“He probably hasn’t allowed himself the luxury to get too emotional,” said George Brauchler, the former District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District in Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. “My guess is there’s a part of him that thinks, ‘OK, the eyes of the world are upon you, don’t screw this up.’ But I also think Michael’s a career prosecutor. This isn’t his first murder case. But it will be the biggest – and hopefully worst – murder case he’ll ever have.”

Brauchler, who personally handled the prosecution of the man who murdered 12 people inside an Aurora movie theater in 2012 and the alleged murderer of Kendrick Castillo at a Highlands Ranch school in 2019, recalled that prosecuting a defendant who walked away alive from their massacre was a relatively new circumstance when he became district attorney.

He predicted the Boulder suspect will have a “well-funded defense team” that will possibly assert a mental health defense. 

In the prosecution’s corner, though, will be the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its expertise. Those skills include pursuing potential communications between the suspect and any domestic or international terrorist organizations, tracking the gun used in the commission of the crime, and having “the most kick-ass 3-D printing shop I have seen on planet Earth,” Brauchler described.

In the Aurora case, the FBI created a model of the theater, which Brauchler displayed for jurors.

Walsh, the former U.S. Attorney who saw multiple massacres occur in Colorado during his tenure – including the Aurora movie theater shootings and the murder of three people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Clinic – said there will be a parallel federal inquiry, and the crime will be a top priority for President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. Attorney.

However, there will likely be a dearth of information made public about the shooting right away, for legitimate reasons.

“We have ethical rules as prosecutors that don’t apply to other attorneys that prevent us from making public statements that may prevent a defendant from receiving a fair trial,” said Steve Jensen, who spent 33 years as a prosecutor in Jefferson County and handled cases arising from the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the 2010 murders at Deer Creek Middle School.

The district attorney will meet with victims’ families, but will avoid public statements that could be repeated and scrutinized, and that could also prompt a transfer of the case to a different jurisdiction, if a media “frenzy” jeopardizes the fairness of the trial.

Brauchler also described the phenomenon of people tracking down victims’ family members and harassing them with claims that their loved ones were still alive because the murders were fictitious. Recently, courts in Texas allowed lawsuits against right-wing media figure Alex Jones to proceed, prompted by his statements that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.

Truman, the defense attorney, agreed on the necessity of staying quiet prior to trial.

“I’ve never had a case in my 47 years where publicity helped me,” he said. Defending an accused killer, Truman added, is “a terrible spot for the defense lawyer to be in. They’ll do their duty, but you don’t like it when the phone rings with these sorts of things.”

Correction: The Highlands Ranch school shooting occurred in 2019.