CENTENNIAL – The jury in the trial of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes has adjourned for the day without reaching a verdict.
Jurors will return Thursday as they consider whether Holmes was legally insane when he killed 12 people and injured 70 more during a crowded midnight movie premiere.
The jurors deliberated for more than seven hours Wednesday, asking the judge three questions and requesting a whiteboard. They also asked for an index to the mounds of evidence left for them in the jury room, but the judge declined.
The panel must decide whether prosecutors have met their burden in proving Holmes was capable of knowing right from wrong and therefore legally sane under Colorado law. Holmes’ lawyers say he was in the grips of a psychotic episode during the July 2012 attack.
Photos of the 12 people who died in the theater shooting were the last images jurors saw before they started deliberating Wednesday over whether the gunman, James Holmes, was legally insane when he opened fire on a crowded midnight movie premiere.
Within 30 minutes, the group of nine women and three men had requested the whiteboard. Later, they asked for the index to the mounds of evidence left for them in the jury room. But Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. denied the request, saying the two sides wouldn’t agree on how things should be labeled.
“I anticipated this because there are thousands of pieces of evidence, but unfortunately they have to do it the hard way, which is just sort of dig through,” Samour told the attorneys.
In closing arguments Tuesday, District Attorney George Brauchler kept the focus on the shooting’s heavy toll on victims, weaving their stories into a larger narrative that tried to show Holmes was legally sane when he carried out the attack almost three years ago.
Defense attorney Daniel King presented Holmes, now 27, as a kind of victim himself, of schizophrenia so consuming he was unable to tell right from wrong when he slipped into the auditorium and started shooting, injuring another 70 before his gun jammed and he surrendered. King showed jurors images of Holmes looking dazed and sullen with fiery orange hair after the July 20, 2012, attack.
Defense attorneys are asking for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, which would send Holmes to the state mental hospital for an indefinite commitment. Prosecutors say Holmes should be convicted of murder and executed.
