“It’s irrelevant by statute and not a defense,” Taheri said.

The judge then left the courtroom briefly. When he returned, he ruled in favor of the prosecution and forbade Cole from raising the issue at trial.

“I’ll evoke the old expression that the leopard can’t change it’s spots,” Forgey said. “This evidence is still evidence of voluntary intoxication.”

A series of requests planned for the hearing were then quickly dispatched. Taheri withdrew another request — under a different procedure — seeking to circumscribe admission of drug evidence. And he deemed a request to limit expert testimony on the issue irrelevant. Forgey agreed, and declined to rule on the additional requests.

Once Forgey had finished handling the questions surrounding LSD evidence, Cole told the judge that he had not yet been granted all the evidence he needs for trial. He said security video provided by prosecutors appeared incomplete and he did not have an accurate hospital floor plan, despite the medical center saying it had given the diagram to prosecutors. Cole said the hospital had threatened to call the police if he went to the building to diagram the hallway on his own.