My money is on this being a ploy by the public defender to avoid hate crimes charges. We'll see what the evidence produces in the trial.
It wouldn't save him from hate crimes charges anyway. He targeted LBGT people.
Anderson Lee Aldrich kept an assault-type rifle and a burner phone in a one-bedroom apartment near the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs where he lived with his mother until a couple of months ago, according to Xavier Kraus, a former neighbor in the same apartment hallway.
Kraus, 23, who said he once considered Aldrich a friend, also told The Daily Beast that the 22-year-old suspect in the mass shooting at the LGBTQ club Club Q that killed five people and injured 18 more on Saturday frequently used the word “f****t.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/anderson-lee-aldrich-colorado-springs-club-q-shooting-suspect-used-anti-gay-slurs-neighbor-says