Jury sends trial to third phase in the James Holmes sentencing

James Holmes, the Colorado movie massacre gunman, could face the death penalty after jurors found on Monday that aggravating factors including the cruel nature of his crimes counted for more than mitigating ones such as mental illness.

Nevertheless, after only three hours of deliberation, the jury decided that nothing in Holmes’ life were factors with sufficient weight to allow them to decide that he should not be sentenced to death, thus opening the door for a possible death sentence.

The jury in the James Holmes trial has made a decision regarding a third penalty phase as they work to make a decision on whether he gets life in prison or the death penality.

The same jury rejected Holmes’ insanity defense, convicting him of murdering 12 people and trying to kill 70 others in the July 2012 theater attack. After the verdicts were read in court Monday afternoon, the judge dismissed the jurors and ordered them to return Tuesday at 10 a.m.

The jury had deliberated for less than half a day on whether mitigating factors outweighed aggravating ones. Jurors can expect to hear more emotional testimony from shooting victims about how the crime has impacted their lives.

If one juror had believed death should not be an option then the trial would have ended and Holmes would have automatically received a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before reaching their latest decision. They found the appealing portrait of a younger, kinder Holmes didn’t outweigh the heinous nature of his methodical and calculated attack on defenseless moviegoers.

Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed, said that prosecutors told her that she would testify today.

A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr Jeffrey Metzner, said sickness and delusions drove Holmes to kill, rather than a desire for notoriety. “All they need is one holdout…

Holmes was a promising student in a neuroscience Ph.D. program when he broke up with his first and only girlfriend and dropped out of school.

“Those who ignite a fire should be responsible for the cost of suppressing it before it becomes a conflagration”, Matsch wrote in his order.