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| Aurora jury reaches decision on death penalty for James Holmes | Aurora jury reaches decision on death penalty for James Holmes |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The jury in the Colorado movie theater shooting trial has reached a verdict in the death penalty phase of the proceedings against convicted gunman James Holmes, a court spokesman said on Friday. | The jury in the Colorado movie theater shooting trial has reached a verdict in the death penalty phase of the proceedings against convicted gunman James Holmes, a court spokesman said on Friday. |
| The panel of nine women and three men has been deliberating since late Thursday afternoon on whether the 27-year-old Holmes should be executed or serve life in prison without parole. | The panel of nine women and three men has been deliberating since late Thursday afternoon on whether the 27-year-old Holmes should be executed or serve life in prison without parole. |
| The court spokesman said the verdict forms had been completed and Arapahoe County district court judge Carlos Samour would take the bench at 5pm local time (7pm ET). The Denver Post was reporting that media and families of the victims were gathering on the courthouse lawn ahead of the announcement. | |
| The nine women and three men of the jury deliberated for about six and a half hours over two days. In order for a death sentence to be handed down, all twelve jurors must be unanimous in their decision. | |
| Holmes was found guilty on 17 July of 165 separate charges, including murder in the first degree. At issue was not whether Holmes perpetrated the shooting rampage on 20 July 2012, but rather whether his schizophrenia had rendered him legally insane at the time of the killings, as his defense team unsuccessfully insisted. | |
| Following the guilty verdict, the trial entered the sentencing phase. For the three weeks, jurors heard testimony from victims, their family members, as well as Holmes’ mother and father. | |
| “Schizophrenia chose him. He didn’t choose it,” Arlene Holmes, James’ mother, told jurors on 29 July. “I still love my son. I still do.” | |
| Numerous members of the jury were moved to tears when victims told their story on the stand, including Ashley Moser’s, who lost her six-year-old daughter Veronica Moser-Sullivan and suffered a miscarriage in the attack. | |
| “You cannot get them justice and you should not seek it,” district attorney George Brauchler said during his closing remarks in the sentencing phase. “But you can get justice to this act. And to him. To James Eagan Holmes justice is death. It’s death.” | |
| Defense lawyer Tamara Brady countered: “The deaths of all of those people cannot be answered by another death.” | |
| “Please, no more death,” she told the jurors. “He will be punished. He will be punished severely and he will be punished for the rest of his life.” | |
| Before releasing them to deliberate, judge Carlos Samour Jr imparted on jurors the weight of their task. This “may well be the most serious and important decision you ever have to make,” he said, and insisted that they each use “their own individual reasoned moral judgment” in deciding Holmes’ fate. | |
| Reuters contributed to this report |