James Holmes Sentenced in Colorado Movie Theater Shootings

He was convicted last month of 24 counts of first-degree murder – two for each of the slain victims. Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and injuring 70 others on July 20, 2012.

Holmes’ parents declined to speak to the media but issued a statement through an attorney. It’s a devastating result no matter what. That automatically eliminated the death penalty for Holmes. He also said the jury did “a hell of a job”.

“We ended our deliberations when one absolutely would not move”, she said.

The families have become a tight knit group since the attack three years ago. They chose life. Prosecutors sought execution. “For James Eagan Holmes”, district attorney George Brauchler told jurors, “justice is death”. But the victims and the public might not have ever learned in detail what was behind the shootings had the plea deal been accepted.

He says the attack was the type of crime that called out for the community, through the jury system, to be involved in the sentence.

The family of some victims reacted with anger.

The bill would have taken some of the prosecuting funds now spent on death penalty trials and put them toward solving the roughly 1,400 unsolved murder cases in the state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The defense showed jurors photographs of Holmes hanging out in the backyard with children from the neighborhood and playing in the surf near his home in California.

A breakdown of the jury vote has not been released.

Reporters in the courtroom tweeted about the reactions from family members of victims and Holmes’ parents.

A jury has sentenced Colorado theatre shooter James E Holmes to life in prison with no chance of parole after weighing and rejecting the possibility of a death sentence.

“The death of a seriously mentally ill man is not justice no matter how tragic the case is”, she said. Holmes sits second from left in a light shirt.

Ashley Moser, who is paralyzed and lost her 6-year-old daughter during the shooting, sobbed in her wheelchair and shook her head. Reuters Mourners pray in front of a makeshift memorial after a prayer vigil at the Aurora Municipal Center for the victims of the mass shooting at a Century 16 movie theater, on July 22, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado. The trial lasted 40 days, and five jurors were dismissed for failing to follow court media rules during that time.

The jurors returned the sentence Friday. Twelve people were killed and 70 others were injured when Holmes opened fire during the midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises“.

Holmes, 27, is a former neuroscience doctoral student.

In Colorado, the entire jury must agree to a death sentence, but they couldn’t come to a unanimous decision.

The decision is set to be read at 7 p.m. EST.

The panel of nine women and three men asked for the 45-minute recording Friday morning.

Formal sentencing is set to begin on August. 24.

Holmes remained relatively expressionless throughout the trial, even when dozens of wounded survivors testified about how they stumbled over bodies while escaping and witnessed loved ones die in their arms.

The same jury earlier convicted 27-year-old Holmes for the capital murder of 12 people.

The defense had argued that Holmes’ schizophrenia led to a psychotic break, and that powerful delusions drove him to carry out one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.

“It will be much harder than they think to sentence (Holmes) to death when they have been staring at him for three months”.