FILE – This file photo released on Sept. 20, 2012 by the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office shows Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes. While on the stand on July 28 and 29, 2015, Robert Holmes testified that his son came home from winter break from graduate school in 2011, several months before the shooting, and was making odd facial expressions which his parents had not seen in him before. (AP Photo/Arapahoe County Sheriff via AP) Jurors in the Colorado theater shooting trial declined to rule out the death penalty Monday as they move toward sentencing James Holmes, finding his defense failed to persuade them to show him mercy.
The decision clears the way for a last plea from both sides, including what is expected to be gripping and emotional testimony from victims about the harm and suffering Holmes caused with his slaughter.
After those arguments, the jury will make its final decision on whether the 27-year-old should die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison.
The same jury last month convicted Holmes of killing 12 people and injuring 70 in the July 2012 attack at a suburban Denver movie theater. Jurors rejected the defense claim that mental illness had so warped his mind that he could not tell right from wrong.
In the first step of Colorado’s complicated death sentencing process, prosecutors argued Holmes sprang a terrifying and cruel ambush on hundreds of unsuspecting victims. Jurors agreed and said the crime was so heinous that the death penalty could be appropriate.