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 "He came into that theater to perpetrate a mass murder," District
Attorney George Brauchler said in his closing argument for the
trial's punishment phase. He urged the jury to be prepared for an
emotional appeal from the defense.
"If there were tears, if there were pleading, could that make a life
sentence appropriate for what he has done? No," he told the jury.
"For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death. It's death."
Defense attorney Tamara Brady said Brauchler was right about one
thing: that she would argue from the heart.
"I am going to be emotional and I am going to be passionate, because
the weight of a man's life is in my hands right now, until I hand it
over to you," Brady told the panel.
Using a semiautomatic rifle, shotgun and pistol, the former
neuroscience graduate student killed 12 people and wounded 70 in a
packed midnight screening of a Batman movie in the Denver suburb of
Aurora. Last month, the jury rejected his plea of insanity and
convicted the 27-year-old Holmes on all counts for the July 2012
rampage.
 The jurors are now deliberating on whether Holmes, who had no
previous criminal record, should be put to death by lethal
injection, or serve life in prison with no parole.
The trial began in late April and featured 306 witnesses and almost
2,700 pieces of evidence over 60 days. Brauchler said it was hard to
imagine what the attorneys could say that would add to the process
at this point.
Showing the court photographs of those killed, and reminding jurors
about the harrowing testimony heard from survivors this week, he
told the nine women and three men no one should make them feel
guilty about opting for the ultimate penalty.
"Could someone tell you that a decision to impose a death sentence
for this horror, that that is only out of vengeance? Or that it is
an act of revenge on behalf of the victims? No, you know better than
that," the prosecutor said. "This building that we're in, is not the
Arapahoe County Eye-For-An-Eye Center, or Revenge Center, or
Vengeance Center, it is a Justice Center."
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Brauchler also played audio from a 911 call recorded that night. As
the jury heard gunshots crash in the background, the victims' photos
on the screen blinked out, one by one.
When Brady stood up to make her speech for the defense, several
relatives of those who were killed left the courtroom.
Brady said the jurors understood very well by now the difference
between someone being mentally ill and the legal definition of
insanity. All the doctors they heard from, she added, had agreed
that Holmes was seriously mentally ill.
But she said the prosecution had needed to paint her client as
sub-human, evil and filled with hatred.
"Because you have to dehumanize someone before you can ask other
people to kill him. It easier to ask you to kill a monster than it
is a sick human being," Brady said.
"It is medieval to claim that schizophrenia is the source of evil.
That demeans all people who suffer from mental illness, and it
demeans us all."
If the jurors vote unanimously for the death penalty, Holmes will be
executed by lethal injection. Otherwise, he will serve life with no
possibility of parole.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Additional reporting and writing by
Daniel Wallis; Editing by David Gregorio)
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