CENTENNIAL – James Holmes will spend the rest of his life in prison after at least one juror balked at the possibility of sentencing him to death for the massacre that claimed 12 lives and spawned a gut-wrenching four-month trial.
Because the 12 jurors failed to agree that Holmes should be executed, he will be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2012 attack on a midnight screening of a Batman movie that left 70 injured.
Nine jurors wanted to execute Holmes, but one was opposed and two others wavered, a juror said.
“Mental illness played into the decision more than anything else,” said the woman, who wouldn’t give her name.
The verdict shocked the courtroom. Holmes’ mother, Arlene, who had begged for his life, leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and sobbed. Aurora police officers who responded to the scene of Holmes’ attacks cried.
Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed by Holmes, shook her head no and then held it in her hands. Ashley Moser, whose 6-year-old daughter, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, died in the attack and who was herself paralyzed by Holmes’ bullets, also shook her head and then leaned it against the wheelchair of victim Caleb Medley.
Families began to leave the courtroom as Judge Carlos Samour Jr. continued reading the verdict. Their wails were audible through closed courtroom doors.
Holmes, who is on medication that dulls his responses, showed no reaction. His attorneys left without commenting.
The verdict was a setback for District Attorney George Brauchler, who two years ago rejected a plea deal from Holmes’ attorney that would have ended the case with life in prison, the same result. Brauchler said the defense refused to let Holmes be examined by a state psychiatrist or release a notebook in which he detailed his reasons for the attack. Holmes’ subsequent videotaped psychiatric exams were played at trial, and the notebook entered into evidence.
“Because of that decision,” Brauchler said, “the community now knows everything about this case.” He praised the jury for “a hell of a job” in the four-month trial.
Defense attorneys argued Holmes’ schizophrenia led to a psychotic breakdown, and powerful delusions drove him to carry out one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.
The verdict is the latest blow to the death penalty in Colorado, which has executed only one person since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1977. Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2013 said he would not carry out the scheduled execution of a man convicted of killing four at a Chuck E. Cheese in 1993.
It took jurors about 12 hours of deliberations to decide the first part – they rejected his insanity defense and found him guilty of 165 felony counts.
The defense then conceded his guilt but insisted during the sentencing phase that his crimes were caused by the psychotic breakdown of a mentally ill young man, reducing his moral culpability and making a life sentence appropriate.
