Jury sentences Colo. theater shooter to life in prison
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Survivors and family members of those killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting sat stunned into near silence Friday as jurors 24 times spared the life of the man who killed their loved ones.
In verdicts read starting at 5 p.m. MT, jurors said they were unable to reach a unanimous decision to impose the death penalty on each of the murder charges James Holmes, now 27, faced, two for each of the 12 people he killed July 20, 2012, at a suburban Denver movie house. Seventy others were injured, and many continue to deal with physical limitations that are a result of the attack.
The same jury had previously convicted Holmes of murder but decided Friday that he would not be put to death. Under Colorado law, imposing the death penalty via lethal injection requires jurors to reach an unanimous verdict for execution. They spent portions of two days to make their decision.
"It's just not fair," Sandy Phillips said crying as she left the courtroom. Phillips' daughter died in the shooting, and Phillips wore her green shawl every day to the trial that began in April. "There are people who will be in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives."
As the sentence was read, Holmes’ mother, Arlene, who had asked the jury to spare her son’s life, leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and began sobbing. Holmes, who is on anti-psychotic medication that dulls his responses, rocked his chair side to side as he awaited his fate and had no reaction to the decision.
In a hearing that will start Aug. 24, Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. will formally sentence Holmes to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Since April, jurors had spent 15 weeks hearing evidence in the case against the former neuroscience doctoral student whom prosecutors argued was upset about failures in his personal and educational life. They say he made a calculated decision to attack the theater and killed to improve his self-worth.
After leaving the courtroom, another woman sobbed so loudly that it could be heard from another floor, echoing through the otherwise empty courthouse where prosecutors laid out Holmes' methodical attack on the theater where fans were watching a midnight premiere of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.
Yet, some family members of victims said they were pleased with the jury's decision.
Writing on Twitter, Jordan Ghawi said he opposed the death penalty from the start. Ghawi's sister, Jessica, was killed in the attack.
Defense lawyers said Holmes would have pleaded guilty two years ago if prosecutors had taken the death penalty off the table.
"Three years of anguish and $5 million for a verdict that the defense had already agreed to," Ghawi wrote. "Thank you, jurors, for letting reason and not emotion guide you in your decision."
For those in the courtroom, emotions ran high even after Samour warned observers to maintain their composure.
As Samour read the jury's findings aloud, Aurora police Sgt. Shelley Owens muffled her sobs with a flowered handkerchief, a colleague leaning over, the courtroom lights shining off the special commemorative medals both wore in recognition of their service that night three years ago.
Speaking after the verdicts, District Attorney George Brauchler read aloud the victims' names a final time before dozens of television cameras and nearly 100 journalists.
"That's what this case at it's heart was all about," he said. "I still think death is justice for what that guy did."
Holmes will be housed in administrative segregation, locked in a cell for 23 hours a day but with access to television, books and newspapers, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.
If Holmes had been sentenced to death, he would have faced at least a decade of appeals before an execution could have been carried out. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has called for a public debate about the death penalty in Colorado — one of 31 states that allows it.
Only one person has been executed in the past 50 years in Colorado, and the governor granted a reprieve in 2013 for convicted killer Nathan Dunlap.
Walking out of the courtroom, Phillips tightened her daughter's shawl around her shoulders and wondered aloud what kind of justice had been done.
Throwing an arm around her shoulders, an Aurora police officer reminded her of the many lives changed that fateful day: "Ma'am, we're all family now."