Aurora theater shooting jury says death penalty can be considered

Jurors determined that capital punishment is justified because James Holmes murdered a large number of victims.

|
Colorado Judicial Department/AP
In this image taken from Colorado Judicial Department video, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes, top third from left in light-colored shirt, stands for the entrance of the jury, inside Arapahoe County District Court, where his trial continuesThursday, July 23, 2015, in Centennial, Colo. The afternoon saw the conclusion of part one of the penalty phase of the trial of Holmes, with the judge reading the jury's decision that Holmes is eligible for the death penalty.

Jurors decided unanimously Thursday that the Colorado theater attack was cruel enough to justify the death penalty for James Holmes. His defense then urged them to spare his life, despite the horrors he caused.

Jurors determined that capital punishment is justified because Holmes murdered a large number of victims; caused a grave risk of death to others; committed murder in a heinous, cruel or depraved manner; and laid in wait or ambush.

One factor they said prosecutors did not prove was that Holmes intentionally killed a child, but the other "aggravating factors" ensure that the death penalty remains an option during his sentencing.

Holmes was told to stand for these findings, and remained calm with his hands in his pockets, looking directly at Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. as he read them.

Prosecutors said Holmes wanted to murder as many as he could in the audience of more than 400 people, and killed 12 only because his assault rifle jammed. The defense effectively conceded this, hoping to focus jurors attention instead on the "mitigating factors" that make it wrong to execute him.

"Mitigation is a reason to choose life," defense attorney Rebekka Higgs said as this next phase began Thursday afternoon. "You are now responsible for that life, and you ought to know all you can about that life."

Higgs told jurors the defense accepts their verdict that Holmes was legally sane when he committed the attack. But she said the fact remains that if Holmes were not mentally ill, the crime never would have happened.

"The only reasonable explanation here is a psychotic break, a broken mind," she said. "We are not going to ask you to forgive Mr. Holmes. We are going to ask for your compassion, your understanding, your mercy ... because all that aggravation was born of disease, and we don't kill people for being sick."

District Attorney George Brauchler urged jurors to hold fast to the facts they already agreed on.

"This phase will be all about the person who committed those horrific, those aggravated, mass murders," he said. "We'll talk more about mental illness, and in the end you'll be asked whether or not that outweighs the horror of the aggravators you have just found. And it will not."

The jurors' individual values now become paramount.

The judge said each juror "may consider mercy," based on the evidence. This doesn't mean passion or bias or a merely emotional response, but neither should their calculations be "mechanical or mathematical," he said.

"A mitigating factor is not a justification or an excuse for the crime. It's a matter of fairness or mercy, which can be invoked to reduce the degree of a defendant's moral culpability," the judge instructed.

If jurors finally decide that Holmes' mental problems outweigh the lifelong suffering he caused, the trial will end there, with a life sentence. If not, a final phase will be held, during which victims and their relatives would describe their pain and heartache.

The bullets Holmes sprayed killed 12 people and wounded 58. Twelve others were injured in the chaos.

Prosecutor Rich Orman had argued that Holmes deliberately killed his victims, including 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan. But jurors didn't find the intent that would qualify the child's death as another "aggravating factor."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Aurora theater shooting jury says death penalty can be considered
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0723/Aurora-theater-shooting-jury-says-death-penalty-can-be-considered
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe