The Holmes attend the Peñasquitos Lutheran Church, and James graduated from Westview High School and did an internship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla.
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Some of the family members of the victims were upset with the decision, and District Attorney George Brauchler apologized to them for not being able to secure the death penalty. Twelve people died during the attack, and 70 were wounded.
CENTENNIAL, CO – UNSPECIFIED DATE: In this handout provided by the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, accused movie theater shooter James Holmes poses for a booking photo on an unspecified date in Centennial, Colorado.
“She felt that life [in prison] was appropriate and she would not be swayed”, the juror said. It’s a devastating result no matter what. “No, I’m sorry”, Sullivan said.
Another suggested that the jury had been “infiltrated” by a death penalty opponent.
Four mental health experts testified that the shooting wouldn’t have happened if Holmes weren’t severely mentally ill.
Holmes is scheduled to be formally sentenced later this month. “It was very emotionally hard”, she said.
The families have become a tight knit group since the attack three years ago. They say he he listened to loud music through headphones when he shot into the audience to block out the screams of the victims.
After members of the jury determined that Holmes was legally sane, they couldn’t agree to recommend the death penalty.
“What a great deal of trauma to bring the victims through over the period of time since Holmes offered to plead guilty”, said Denise Maes, public policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. Brauchler added that he was disappointed with the verdict, but praised the jury for doing “a hell of a job” during the grueling, 4-month-long trial.
For Holmes, justice is his execution, Brauchler told the jury.
Jurors are now free to talk about the case but a court spokesman said none would speak Friday.
A breakdown of the jury vote has not been released.
She and Veronica Moser-Sullivan’s mother-who was paralyzed in the shooting-could both be seen shaking their heads no as the sentence was read.
Jordan Ghawi, whose sister Jessica was killed, took to Twitter to express his disappointment.
Holmes studied neuroscience hoping to understand what was happening to his mind.
It is appalling that after committing such heinous crimes against humanity, Holmes was shown undeserving leniency by the jurors.
The jurors returned the sentence Friday.
Holmes’ lawyers tried but failed to persuade the jury that the 27 year-old college dropout was mentally ill, suffering from schizophrenia and could not tell right from wrong.
It took the jury 6.5 hours to finish deliberations. The sentence will be announced at 7 p.m.
Jurors convicted Holmes on July 16 on 24 counts of first-degree murder, two counts for each person murdered in the July 20, 2012 attack inside an Aurora movie theater.
“The poll joins other new data demonstrating that sentencing trends are down across the country for death-eligible defendants with severe mental illness”, said University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor Robert Smith, who commissioned the survey. Of the 12 jurors, 9 have been in favor of the dying penalty, however they have been unable to persuade the dissenter to think about the punishment.
The panel, formed by three men and nine women, watched as Judge Carlos Samour revealed the decision.
Attorneys for Holmes objected, saying the video was too graphic.
The judge, however, ruled the jurors could view it, but only once. Instead, they argued for a life sentence because they said he had suffered a psychotic break.
Holmes was not immediately remanded to prison. Holmes opened fire on audience watching the Batman film The Dark Night Rises, killing 12 people and wounding 70.
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Colorado remains politically divided on the death penalty.
