The jury had already rejected the gunman’s insanity plea and found him guilty on all 165 counts of murder, attempted murder and explosives charges relating to his July 2012 mass shooting inside the Century 16 cinema in the Denver suburb of Aurora.
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Sandy Phillips said she and her husband no longer celebrate Thanksgiving because it falls so near the November 27 birthday of her daughter, Jessica Ghawi, another victim. Jurors declined to rule out death for Holmes as they moved toward sentencing the Colorado theater shooter.
On the other hand, “no juror may make a decision for the death penalty unless the juror is convinced without a reasonable doubt that death is the appropriate sentence”, the judge said.
In the first step of Colorado’s complicated death sentencing process, prosecutors argued Holmes sprang a terrifying and cruel ambush on hundreds of unsuspecting victims. Ian Sullivan, the father of Holmes youngest victim, 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, closed his eyes when her name was read. They deliberated for less than three hours.
The court in the Colorado entertainment Batman filming pilot is going to take into cosideration the demise penalty while it strikes in the direction of heroin prosecution James Holmes.
Josh Nowlan, who was wounded by multiple gunshots in the 2012 Aurora movie theater attack, walks away after speaking with members of the media following the reading of the verdict in penalty phase 2 of the James Holmes trial at the Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo., Monday, August 3, 2015.
Jurors have reached a decision on whether to keep the death penalty as an option for Colorado theater shooter James Holmes.
Jurors rejected the defense claim that mental illness had so warped his mind that he could not tell right from wrong.
Brauchler said their final deliberations may begin as early as Wednesday.
Micayla was “filled with love”, she said.
The mother of Jessica Ghawi (GOW’-ee), an aspiring sports broadcaster killed by Holmes, said she was feeling a little overwhelmed about taking the stand. But Sandy Phillips said it’s her job to share her daughter’s story and vowed to do the best she could. Tamara Brady, one of Holmes’ lawyers, told Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. they probably would not call any witnesses of their own. “All I remember is my knees buckling and slamming into the concrete floor”, she said.
This final stage can be more challenging for each juror.
Theyre making the ultimate decision of life or death, quite literally, Recht said.
Some of the victims’ relatives described repeatedly calling their missing loved ones’ cellphones the night of the shooting, desperately hoping to hear they were alive.
We are one step closer, Joshua Nowlan said outside court, adding that hes very happy with the results.. They said it was schizophrenia, not free will, that drove him to murder.
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.
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In an eerie notebook introduced as evidence in his trial, Holmes laid out his plans of attack, diagnosed himself with a litany of mental problems and wrote that he hid the depths of his problems – and his homicidal plans – from everyone. Then, he stood before a capacity crowd of more than 400 people, and opened fire.
