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David Sanchez said that would be the appropriate punishment if Holmes is convicted. He said his pregnant daughter escaped without injury but her husband was shot in the head and was in critical condition. His 21-year-old daughter, Katie Medley, was scheduled to deliver her baby at any time. "When it's your own daughter and she escaped death by mere seconds, I want to say it makes you angry," Sanchez said. He said Medley and her husband, Caleb, 23, waited a year to watch the movie. Chambers' office is responsible for the convictions of two of the three people on Colorado's death row. Chambers also is the only state district attorney to seek the death penalty in any case in the last five years, said Michael Radelet, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who tracks death penalty cases. Colorado uses the death penalty relatively sparingly. It has executed just one inmate since capital punishment was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. The state legislature fell one vote short of abolishing the death penalty in 2009. At a news conference in San Diego, where Holmes' family lives, their lawyer refused to answer questions about him and his relationship to the family. Lisa Damiani said later: "Everyone's concerned" about the possibility of the death penalty. When asked if they stood by Holmes, Damiani said, "Yes, they do. He's their son." Weeks before, Holmes quit a 35-student Ph.D. program in neuroscience for reasons that aren't clear. He had earlier taken an intense oral exam that marks the end of the first year but University of Colorado Denver officials would not say if he passed, citing privacy concerns. University officials have refused to answer questions about Holmes. "To the best of our knowledge at this point, we think we did everything that we should have done," Donald Elliman, the university chancellor, told reporters. The judge has issued an order barring lawyers in the case from publicly commenting on matters including evidence, whether a plea deal is in the works or results of any examination or test.
[Associated
Press;
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