Mentally Ill James Holmes Sentenced to Life in Prison in Aurora, CO Theater Shooting

On August 7, a jury in Aurora, Colorado, sen­tenced James Holmes to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole for the 2012 movie the­ater shoot­ing that killed 12 peo­ple and injured dozens more. The jury said they could not reach a unan­i­mous deci­sion on Holmes’ sen­tence, an out­come that results in a sen­tence of life without parole. 

After the tri­al, one juror said that the pros­e­cu­tion had not per­suad­ed three of the jurors to impose a death sen­tence. The delib­er­a­tions, she said, were very emo­tion­al, and at the time jurors agreed to stop delib­er­at­ing, one juror was firm­ly com­mit­ted to a life sen­tence, with two oth­er hold­outs still unde­cid­ed. She said, ​“The issue of men­tal ill­ness was every­thing for the one who did not want to impose the death penal­ty.” [UPDATE: One of the jurors who vot­ed for a life sen­tence says there was not a sin­gle hold­out juror for life. Three vot­ed for life, and the jury did not inquire fur­ther into the views of the oth­er two after the indi­cat­ed that her vote was firm.]

Holmes had also offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sen­tence of life with­out parole, which would have removed the need for the six-month tri­al that cost Colorado tax­pay­ers more than $5 mil­lion. After that plea offer was reject­ed, Holmes plead­ed not gui­ty by rea­son of insan­i­ty. All of the men­tal health experts agreed that Holmes would not have com­mit­ted the killing but for his men­tal ill­ness, but dis­agreed on whether he could appre­ci­ate the crim­i­nal­i­ty of his con­duct. The jury reject­ed the insan­i­ty defense and con­vict­ed him of all charges. Holmes’ sen­tence high­lights both the rar­i­ty of death sen­tences in Colorado and racial and geo­graph­ic inequities in its imposition.

Only three men, all of them black, are on death row in Colorado. All three are from Aurora, and were tried in a judi­cial dis­trict in which, accord­ing to a recent study, pros­e­cu­tors are near­ly 4 times more like­ly to seek death than in the rest of the state. Colorado’s last exe­cu­tion was in 1997. Governor John Hickenlooper has imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, cit­ing con­cerns about accu­ra­cy and fair­ness in impos­ing the death penalty.