From the Aurora Sentinel:
After just a few hours of deliberation, jurors in the Aurora theater shooting trial unanimously decided that the trial of James Holmes will proceed to a third and final sentencing phase — where an ultimate decision on the death penalty will be made.
The jury’s quick deliberation and verdict found they did not deem the defense’s mitigation evidence to outweigh the four aggravating factors proven during the first phase of sentencing. Jurors deliberated for about an hour last week and 90 minutes this morning before reaching their verdict…
…The court now prepares to enter the third phase of sentencing, during which prosecutors are expected to call several of the victims’ relatives to testify.
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Thanks for the update, Pols. I haven't looked at a news site in several hours and hadn't heard this yet.
I’m not a big fan of the death penalty to start with, but IMHO there is probably no more textbook candidate than Holmes to stand as an example of mitigating circumstances by way of mental illness. If Holmes doesn’t qualify, then this phase of death penalty trials might as well be eliminated.
Heard an expert on NPR saying it's unlikely he'd ever be executed, even after the now usual decades. Seems you have to be found competent to be executed at the scheduled time of your execution, just as you have to be found competent to stand trial in the first place. He said that after decades experiencing the conditions on death row, a person with Holmes degree of mental illness, serious schizophrenia according to every mental health expert witness called by both prosecution and defense, his mental health will pretty much certainly have deteriorated to the point where he will not be found competent. So the death sentence will basically be a life without parole sentence anyway, only with the expense and continuing trauma for the families of decades of appeals for an end result not otherwise different from the deal, life without parole, that was offered and rejected by Brauchler before the trial.
Of course Brauchler will be able to benefit politically in the meantime as the tough prosecutor who got the death penalty for the Aurora Theater mass murderer but it's hard to see how anyone else, including the families, will benefit. Closure? Life without parole would at least give them a final result, a definite outcome. Death will just leave them not knowing for decades, if ever, whether the sentence will actually be carried out. This isn’t Texas.
I heard that report, too. He's already supposedly deteriorated – that was a claim the prosecution used in rebutting the defense psychiatrist's evaluation: that it was a later evaluation and didn't evaluate Holmes' state of mind at the time of the attack.
The State will, of course, spend lots of effort trying to get him to a state of sanity, no matter how temporary, if the time ever comes for him to be executed.
A couple of decades at least now seems to be the floor and the mental health issues will no doubt stretch this one out even more, maybe another decade more. Lots more to dispute and appeal. Not much in the way of closure any time soon. Grandparents and some parents of victims won't live to see a final result. The deal would have ended the process immediately with a definite result and no possibility of appeals. It's really a shame Brauchler preferred to grandstand, especially considering Holmes mental illness was so obvious to all and guaranteed no closure for anyone any time in the near or mid future, if ever, in the absence of accepting the deal and letting everyone come to grips with it as a fait accompli.