Jury: Aurora Gunman Could Face Death Penalty

Holmes’ trial started April 27, three years after the July 2012 shooting during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises at the Century Aurora 16 Multiplex Theater. In that phase, jurors will listen to victim impact statements and decide if Holmes deserves death.

The jury of nine women and three men had convicted Holmes of more than 160 counts of murder and attempted murder last month, verdicts that set off an advance in the proceedings to a penalty phase.

Although his family spoke about Holmes’ childhood and asked the jurors to spare their son’s life, the panel ultimately decided the aggravating factors of the shooting were sufficient to possibly warrant capital punishment, leaving the death penalty on the table. They found simply that Holmes mental problems and the portrait his attorneys painted of a kinder, gentler younger man did not outweigh the horrors of his calculated attack on defenseless moviegoers.

In Colorado, jurors must unanimously agree to issue a death sentence.

Holmes, who killed 12 people and wounded 70, showed no reaction as the verdicts were delivered, staring straight ahead, hands in pockets.

After those arguments, the jury will make its final decision on whether he should die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison. If they fail to reach a decision the trial ends with an automatic sentence of life in prison.

The same jury rejected the defense claim that mental illness so warped his mind that Holmes could not tell right from wrong when he carried out the theater attack in the Denver suburb of Aurora on July 20, 2012.

However, District Attorney George Brauchler’s team said the families of the victims wanted Holmes sentenced to death and would not agree to the plea bargain.

“We wouldn’t be sitting here if she had told me that”, a tearful Arlene said on the stand last week.

Those objections gave, for the first time, a list of who will testify during this phase – which is expected to be extremely emotional.

The prosecution said Holmes took a decision to massacre, then hid his preparations from everyone.

In May 2012, three months before the shooting, the promising neuroscience student dropped out of the University of Colorado.