Colorado shooter to get life in prison

Associated Press

CENTENNIAL, COLO.

Colorado theater shooter James Holmes will be sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury failed to agree Friday on whether he should get the death penalty for his murderous attack on a movie premiere.

The nine women and three men could not reach a unanimous verdict on each of the murder counts. That automatically eliminates the death penalty for the failed neuroscientist, who blamed his calculated killings of 12 people on mental illness.

A juror told reporters outside court that there was a single juror who refused to give Holmes the death penalty, and two others who were wavering.

Prosecutors argued Holmes deserved to die because he methodically planned the 2012 assault at a midnight screening of a Batman movie, even blasting techno music through earphones so he wouldn’t hear his victims scream. Seventy people were injured in the attack.

The verdict was a surprise. The same jury rejected Holmes’ insanity defense, finding him capable of understanding right from wrong when he carried out the attack. It quickly determined the heinousness of Holmes’ crimes outweighed his mental illness in a prior step that brought them closer to the death penalty.

As it was read, Holmes’ mother, Arlene, who had pleaded for jurors to spare her son’s life, leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and sobbied. Aurora police officers who responded to the bloody scene of Holmes’ attacks began crying.