Holmes gets life term after jury fails to agree on execution

[Lite Beer]

Holmes gets life term after jury fails to agree on execution
SADIE GURMAN, Associated Press

CENTENNIAL, Colorado (AP) — Colorado theater shooter James Holmes will be sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury failed to agree Friday on whether he should get the death penalty for his murderous attack on a packed movie premiere.

The nine women and three men said they could not reach a unanimous verdict on each of the 24 murder counts. That automatically eliminates the death penalty for Holmes, who blamed his calculated murders of 12 people on mental illness.

Prosecutors argued Holmes deserved to die because he methodically planned the 2012 assault at a midnight screening of a Batman movie, even blasting techno music through ear phones so he wouldn't hear his victims scream.

The verdict came as a surprise. The same jury rejected Holmes' insanity defense, finding him capable of understanding right from wrong when he carried out the attack. It also quickly determined that the heinousness of Holmes' crimes outweighed his mental illness in a prior step that brought them closer to the death penalty.

As the verdict was read, Holmes' mother Arlene, who had pleaded for jurors to spare her son's life, leaned her head against her husband's shoulder and began sobbing. Tears broke out across the courtroom. In the back, Aurora police officers who responded to the bloody scene of Holmes' attacks began crying.

The defense countered that his schizophrenia led to a psychotic break, and that powerful delusions drove him to carry out one of the nation's deadliest mass shootings. At least one juror agreed — a verdict of death must be unanimous.

Jurors deliberated for about six and a half hours over two days before deciding on Holmes' sentence.

They reached their decision after the judge granted their request earlier Friday to re-watch a graphic crime scene video taken immediately after the massacre. The 45 minutes of footage, played during the trial, shows 10 bodies lying amid spent shell casings, popcorn and blood.

There was never any question during the grueling, four-month trial as to whether Holmes was the killer. Holmes meekly surrendered outside the theater, where police found him clad head-to-toe in combat gear.

The trial hinged instead on the question of whether a mentally ill person should be held legally and morally culpable for an act of unspeakable violence.

It took jurors only 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.

The jury's final decision came after days of tearful testimony from relatives of the slain.

The case could have ended the same way more than two years ago, when Holmes offered to plead guilty if he could avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors rejected the offer. But the victims and the public might not have ever learned in detail what was behind the shootings had the plea deal been accepted.

The trial — featuring a journal where Holmes had secretly described his murderous plans — provided a rare look inside the mind of a mass shooter. Most are killed by police, kill themselves or plead guilty. By pleading insanity, he dropped his privacy rights and agreed to be examined by court-ordered psychiatrists. Holmes told one that he had been secretly obsessed with thoughts of killing since he was 10.

His parents testified that he seemed a normal, affectionate child who withdrew socially in adolescence and became fascinated with science but did not seem abnormal. Holmes studied neuroscience hoping to understand what was happening to his mind. But it was when he moved from San Diego to Colorado to attend graduate school that his meltdown accelerated.

Holmes flunked out of his prestigious doctoral program at the University of Colorado and broke up with a fellow graduate student, the only girlfriend he'd ever had. He began to buy guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition and scouted out The Century 16 theater complex to learn which auditorium would offer the highest number of victims.

Holmes also constructed an elaborate booby-trap in his apartment a few miles away. It failed to explode, but it was designed to blow up and divert police and firefighters at the precise moment of his calculated attack.

Shortly after midnight on July 20, 2012, he slipped into the premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises," 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.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-08-08

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

Justice being served??? Will he get his own library, gym and music studio, like that other Norway nutcase Breivik? All paid with tax payers' money? Great!!!

Edited August 8, 2015 by Blitzkrieg Bob

[freebyrd]

Sometimes there is no justice served. They should have stood him against the wall and used a .50 Browning on him. Vapourised is the only real punishment for a loony who says he feels like he's 12 times more of himself after murdering those innocent people trying to enjoy their lives..

[Ulysses G.]

Just let him into gen pop every day. He will definitely suffer for his crimes.

[Lite Beer]

RT@AP: VIDEO: 9 of 12 jurors wanted to execute James Holmes for deadly attack during Batman movie in Colorado in 2012: http://t.co/ObvLulhOad

[Scott]

Off-topic post and reply removed.

[RaoulDuke]

Giving him death would only ensure that he gets preferential treatment in better accommodations than the general prison population. For some reason, we tend to pamper people on death row. His execution would be delayed by decades or indefinitely, while he continues to cost millions more in taxpayer dollars with endless appeals. It is easy to agree with capital punishment in principle as 'an eye for an eye,' but the reality of death row in the USA is one that is highly favorable to the inmate and prohibitively expensive to the rest of us. Better to throw him in in the general population and let him live out the rest of his days in mortal fear of his peers.

[ozyjon]

I fell asleep while the judge was reading out the verdict

[cookee68]

Justice being served??? Will he get his own library, gym and music studio, like that other Norway nutcase Breivik? All paid with tax payers' money? Great!!!

I don't know, but he will get his own boyfriend.

[Basil B]

... threw gas canisters, and then opened fire with a shotgun, assault rifle and semi-automatic pistol.

The people who lobby, bribe, bully, Americans weak politicians into allowing such weapons to be common place with little gun (and other deadly weapons) control should have been on trial too as accomplices too murder...

Edited August 9, 2015 by Basil B

[CMNightRider]

Justice being served??? Will he get his own library, gym and music studio, like that other Norway nutcase Breivik? All paid with tax payers' money? Great!!!

I don't know, but he will get his own boyfriend.

He will probably end up with a big boyfriend. Once he realises what life is like in prison, he will probably commit suicide.

[CMNightRider]

... threw gas canisters, and then opened fire with a shotgun, assault rifle and semi-automatic pistol.

The people who lobby, bribe, bully, Americans weak politicians into allowing such weapons to be common place with little gun (and other deadly weapons) control should have been on trial too as accomplices too murder...

Give the anti-gun debate a rest. This is about Holmes getting sentenced to life in prison. It's too bad the police didn't shoot him. If anyone deserves the death penalty, this guy does.

[Happy Grumpy]

Justice being served??? Will he get his own library, gym and music studio, like that other Norway nutcase Breivik? All paid with tax payers' money? Great!!!

More likely a spartan 3 x 1.5 meter cell for 23 hrs a day, then the other hour spent in a spartan 5x5 meter 'exercise' pen.

America's prison system is slightly harsher than most of Scandanavia's.

[chuckd]

... threw gas canisters, and then opened fire with a shotgun, assault rifle and semi-automatic pistol.

The people who lobby, bribe, bully, Americans weak politicians into allowing such weapons to be common place with little gun (and other deadly weapons) control should have been on trial too as accomplices too murder...

Write your Congressman and complain.