ABOVE: Jurors reached a decision Monday on whether to rule out the death penalty for James Holmes, the gunman who killed 12 people at a Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, three years ago.
CENTENNIAL, Colo. – Jurors on Monday moved one step closer toward sentencing James Holmes to death for his Colorado movie theatre attack, taking less than three hours to reject arguments that the former neuroscience student’s mental illness means he should not die.
The decision clears the way for one last attempt from both sides to sway the jury, with gripping testimony from victims about their suffering and more appeals for mercy for the man convicted of murdering 12 people and trying to kill 70 more during the 2012 assault at a Batman movie.
Holmes, his reactions dulled by anti-psychotic drugs, stood as ordered and appeared emotionless as Judge Carlos Samour, Jr. read the decisions.
READ MORE: Colorado theatre shooting case goes to jury
Robert and Arlene Homes held hands, their fingers interlaced, and directed their eyes at the floor. With each unanimous “yes,” it became ever more clear that jurors believe their son’s crimes outweighed their testimony. She began to cry, and her husband held out a box of tissues.
More tears flowed in the gallery. Rena Medek began silently sobbing when the judge read the name of her 23-year-old daughter Micayla. Ian Sullivan, the father of Holmes’ youngest victim, 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, closed his eyes when her name was read. Veronica’s grandfather, Robert Sullivan, glared at Holmes and nodded his head softly.
“We are one step closer,” Joshua Nowlan said outside court, adding that he’s “very happy with the results.”
Wounded by the gunfire, Nowlan used the cane he now needs to support his legs as a prop during the trial, to show how Holmes sprayed bullets from his assault rifle.
The jury was told to return Tuesday morning for the final phase. Then, the nine women and three men will finally decide whether the 27-year-old Holmes should receive a lethal injection, or spend life in prison without parole.
READ MORE: Jury resumes death penalty deliberations for Colorado theatre shooter James Holmes
The same jury swiftly rejected Holmes’ insanity defence, deciding that he was capable of telling right from wrong when he carried out the theatre attack in the Denver suburb of Aurora on July 20, 2012. Their quick decision on Monday raised expectations that they will choose a death sentence after what prosecutors estimate will be two or three more days of testimony from survivors.
But legal experts said there’s no way to predict that final decision.
Monday’s preliminary verdict was highly technical. They found simply that Holmes’ mental problems and the portrait his attorneys painted of a kinder, gentler younger man did not outweigh the horrors of his calculated attack on defenceless moviegoers.
This next stage can be more challenging for each juror, and to choose capital punishment, they must be unanimous, Denver defence attorney Dan Recht said.
The defence had argued that mental illness reduced Holmes’ “moral culpability,” and that his personal history made him worthy of mercy. They said it was schizophrenia, not free will, that drove him to murder. They called his former teachers, friends, sister and parents, who said “Jimmy” had been a friendly child who withdrew socially as he grew older.
Robert and Arlene Holmes testified that they never suspected their son was mentally ill. But Robert Holmes acknowledged that they rarely communicated in the months before the theatre attack, and that in his family, emotions just weren’t talked about, even though his own father and sister had been hospitalized with mental illness.
Holmes had been a promising scholar in a demanding neuroscience Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado until his life went awry amid the pressures of laboratory work. He broke up with his first and only girlfriend and dropped out of school, abandoning his longtime goal of becoming a scientist. He obtained prescription anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medicine by seeing a campus psychiatrist, but hid the depth of his turmoil from everyone, describing it instead in a secret journal.
That eerie notebook – which Holmes mailed to the psychiatrist hours before opening fire in the theatre – became key evidence.
Shortly after midnight, he slipped into the premiere of a Batman movie, stood before the capacity crowd of more than 400 people, threw gas canisters, and then opened fire, with a shotgun, assault rifle and semi-automatic pistol before surrendering meekly to police outside.
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