Colorado theatre shooting: James Holmes guilty of murder, could face death penalty

Colorado movie theatre shooting survivors and the victims' families expressed relief when they heard that James Holmes was found guilty on multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the July 2012 shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 injured.

Jurors rejected defence arguments that the former graduate student was insane and driven to kill by delusions.

Jurors found Holmes guilty of 165 counts in the attack. They will return to court next week to begin the sentencing phase of the trial Wednesday, two days after the third anniversary of the attack.

The jury must decide whether Holmes will be put to death or sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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Yousef Gharbi says his "body shuddered" when he heard the first guilty verdict.

Gharbi was shot in the head when Holmes opened fire in the suburban Denver theatre. He stayed outside the courthouse Thursday and said he had no expectations, because he didn't want to be disappointed.

Gharbi said he's now ready to move on.

Families of those killed and injured in the shooting were in the courthouse as the verdict was read. 

Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex was one of the people killed in the attack, said as soon as he heard the judge read the first guilty verdict, "we all knew the dominoes were about to fall."

Later, outside the courthouse, he said, "we got it done the right way."

Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed, said it felt like a weight had been lifted off her back. Ghawi was an aspiring broadcaster who had survived a mall shooting in Toronto a month before the Colorado shooting.

Phillips said "we're very happy this animal — this monster — will never see the light of day."

Shooting survivor Jansen Young said she finally has closure.

Young went to the theatre that night with her boyfriend, Jonathan Blunk, who threw himself in front of her to protect her. Blunk, a 26-year-old father of two young children, was killed.

She expressed relief that the case is coming to a close.

The scene outside the courthouse where the trial was held was subdued. There were no crowds and no cheers when word came that Holmes was convicted. A few people driving past honked their horns.

Holmes showed no reaction

Dressed in a blue dress shirt and khakis, Holmes stood at the defence table, three of his public defenders at his sides and two more standing behind him. He showed no visible reaction as the judge read through the multiple convictions.

The jury heard 11 weeks of testimony. The nine women and three men reached their decision Thursday after deliberating for about a day and a half.

Holmes had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the attack, one of the nation's deadliest shootings. Holmes did not testify in his own defence, but jurors watched video of some 23 hours of interviews conducted with him by court-appointed psychiatrists.

Psychiatrists disagreed

The verdict came almost three years after Holmes, dressed head-to-toe in body armour, slipped through the emergency exit of the darkened theatre in suburban Denver and replaced the Hollywood violence of the movie The Dark Knight Rises with real human carnage.

His victims included two active-duty servicemen, a single mom, and a man celebrating his 27th birthday. Several died shielding friends or loved ones.

Prosecutors argued that Holmes knew exactly what he was doing when he methodically gunned down strangers in the stadium-style theatre, taking aim at those who fled. They painted him as a calculated killer who sought to assuage his failures in school and romance with a mass murder that he believed would increase his personal worth.

Dozens of survivors testified

The prosecution called more than 200 witnesses, more than 70 of them survivors, including some who were missing limbs and using wheelchairs. They recalled the panic to escape the black-clad gunman.

The youngest to die was a six-year-old girl whose mother also suffered a miscarriage and was paralyzed in the attack. Another woman who was nine months pregnant at the time described her agonizing decision to leave her wounded husband behind in the theatre to save their baby. She later gave birth in the same hospital where he was in a coma. He can no longer walk and has trouble talking.

Holmes' attorneys argued that Holmes has schizophrenia and was in the grip of a psychotic breakdown so severe that he was unable to tell right from wrong — Colorado's standard for insanity. They said he was delusional even as he secretively acquired the three murder weapons — a shotgun, a handgun and an AR-15 rifle — while concealing his plans from friends and two worried psychiatrists in the months before the shooting.

Defence lawyers tried to present him as a once-promising student so crippled by mental illness that he couldn't reveal his struggles to anyone who might have helped. They called a pair of psychiatrists, including a nationally known schizophrenia expert, who concluded Holmes was psychotic and legally insane.

But two state-appointed doctors found otherwise, testifying for prosecutors that no matter what Holmes's mental state was that night, he knew what he was doing was wrong.

During the sentencing phase, Holmes's attorneys will present so-called mitigating factors that they hope will save his life. Those will probably include more evidence of mental illness and a sympathetic portrayal of his childhood. Prosecutors will present so-called aggravating factors in support of the death penalty, including the large number of victims.