“There will never be closure for these families, for these victims”, he said.
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“Because of that decision”, Brauchler said, “the community now knows everything about this case”.
Brauchler was joined at a news conference by a group of victims’ families, prosecutors and police officers.
“I still think death is justice for what that guy did, but the system said otherwise”, he told reporters after the court hearing. “Our family members are gone”. She began shaking her head and lay it on the back of the wheelchair of Caleb Medley, another paralyzed victim.
Nothing about the jury’s sentence changes what happened to them or how impacts their families. 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. Holmes, 27, was sentenced Friday to life in jail with out the potential of parole, a verdict that surprised many victims’ relations who sat within the courtroom.
After the verdict was read, death-penalty opponents in Colorado criticized Brauchler’s decision to pursue the death penalty, saying it needlessly stretched out the legal process through a painful, three-month trial that cost millions of dollars.
But defense lawyers emphasized that jurors had no legal obligation to sentence him to death, and they urged jurors to listen to their own moral compasses, no matter what other jurors wanted. Holmes will be sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury failed to agree on whether he should get the death penalty.
On July 20, 2012, Holmes clad himself in body armor, packed an arsenal of weapons and opened fire on 400 unsuspecting people during a midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises“. The former neuroscience graduate student stared straight ahead with his hands in his pockets as the judge read out the forms.
While agreeing that Holmes was mentally ill, the jury could not reach unanimity on the death penalty.
The jury from James Holmes’ case, the man responsible for the 2012 mass shooting in the Aurora Theater, in Colorado sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Within six-and-a-half hours, the panel had returned it’s verdict. The sentence will be announced at 7 p.m.
The same jurors rejected Holmes’ insanity defense and convicted him of murdering 12 people and trying to kill 70 others three years ago at a suburban Denver movie theater.
The same jury earlier convicted 27-year-old Holmes for the capital murder of 12 people. Between 1973 and 2013, the state sentenced 22 people to death, according to the Justice Department.
The judge, however, ruled the jurors could view it, but only once.
“They will suffer for the rest of their lives, those that are living”. Jurors also previously moved closer to the death penalty when they quickly determined the heinousness of Holmes’ crimes outweighed his mental illness.
In closing arguments Thursday, public defender Tamara Brady said the assault was a “tragedy” born of disease, not choice.
The defense argued Holmes’ schizophrenia led to a psychotic break, and powerful delusions drove him to carry out one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.
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In Colorado, the demise penalty might be accepted exclusively by a unanimous vote. Jordan Ghawi, whose sister Jessica was one of the victims, wrote on Twitter, “Thank you jurors for letting reason and not emotion guide you in your decision”.
