James Holmes trial: Colorado theatre shooting case goes to the jury

The Colorado theatre shooting trial has gone to the jury following closing arguments by prosecutors and the defence over whether James Holmes was legally insane at the time of the July 2012 attack. 

Jurors received the case Tuesday evening and will start deliberating at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting that killed 12 people and injured 70 during a packed midnight movie premiere.

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If jurors agree that Holmes was legally insane at the time of the shooting, he'll be committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital. If Holmes is convicted, the trial will enter a sentencing phase in which the jury must decide between life in prison or the death penalty.

3 months of testimony

Jurors heard nearly three months of testimony, including heartbreaking and sometimes gruesome survival stories.

In closing arguments, District Attorney George Brauchler said that Holmes was legally sane when he entered a packed movie theatre armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, intent on killing as many people as he could,

"That guy was sane beyond a reasonable doubt, and he needs to be held accountable for what he did," District Attorney George Brauchler said.

But defence lawyer Daniel King countered that Holmes was controlled by his schizophrenia.

"The mental illness caused this to happen. Only the mental illness caused this, and nothing else," King said.

Holmes slipped into the packed theatre in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012 — almost three years ago — and opened fire. 

Brauchler again stressed the heavy toll on unsuspecting victims who had gone to see the midnight premiere of a Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

"They came in hoping to see the story of a hero dressed in black, someone who would fight insurmountable odds for justice," Brauchler said. "Instead, a different figure appeared by the screen. ... He came there with one thing in his heart and his mind, and that was mass murder."

Many of the victims and family members in the courtroom wept as Brauchler showed photos of the dead and wounded and recounted their stories. Josh Nowlan, who was shot in the leg and walks with a cane, pressed his hands into his eyes and shook.

Jurors showed no emotion but craned their heads toward the gallery when Brauchler said one badly wounded victim, Caleb Medley, was seated there.

King urged the jurors to set aside the deeply emotional impact of the massacre and decide based on the wording of the statute. He repeatedly told them the courtroom was "the fortress of the law."

"Here in the fortress of the law, there is no room for hatred or revenge or retaliation," he said.

Holmes, now 27, does not dispute that he was the lone gunman who attacked the theatre but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers say schizophrenia so warped his mind he could not tell right from wrong, and that he was in the grip of a psychotic episode.

"When he stepped into that theatre, the evidence is clear that he could not control his thoughts, that he could not control his actions, and that he could not control his perceptions," King said.

Brauchler told jurors the evidence shows Holmes knew what he was doing was illegal and wrong and that he cannot be considered insane under Colorado law.

The prosecutor methodically reviewed Holmes' elaborate preparations, the horrific attack and finally his decision to surrender when he saw police closing in outside the theatre.

'He knows it's wrong'

He frequently pointed at Holmes, who sat impassively at the defence table, often looking at one of the three video screens in the courtroom.

"He knows it's wrong," Brauchler said at one point. "Wrong for him, wrong for society."

Holmes's parents, Robert and Arlene Holmes, sat on the opposite side of the courtroom from the victims.

Closing arguments had been scheduled to start earlier in the day but were delayed after the defence said some of the slides prosecutors planned to show jurors were improper. Brauchler defended the images.

Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. ordered Brauchler to change or delete some of the slides, saying they misstated the evidence or made overbroad allegations.

Both sides are trying to help jurors make sense of thousands of pieces of evidence and more than 250 witnesses who testified in the 11-week trial.

Two state-appointed forensic psychiatrists who evaluated Holmes determined that he was legally sane, despite severe mental illness. The defence called its own psychiatrists who testified Holmes was insane.