Jury Finds Colorado Theater Shooter Guilty on 165 Counts

I wrote all about this case at the time.

No surprise about the verdicts.

At the Los Angeles Times, "James Holmes found guilty of murder; shooter in Colorado theater massacre killed 12 people":

The jury weighing the fate of Aurora, Colo., gunman James E. Holmes on Thursday found the 27-year-old former neuroscience graduate student guilty of murder and attempted murder in a trial that has grabbed international headlines.

The verdicts - guilty on all 165 counts - were announced on the second day of deliberations.

The courtroom was silent as Arapahoe County Judge Carlos Samour Jr. read the verdicts. Holmes stood motionless beside his attorneys as Samour read the names of the victims - the men, the women and the child who were murdered, and those who were injured.

Dozens of names rang out in a process that was strangely dry after the deep emotion of the three-month trial. As Samour read the names and the charges against Holmes, the only other sound was the rustle of pages as he made his way through the 165 charges.

"Verdict form Count 1, murder in the first degree after deliberation, Jonathan Blunk," he began. "We the jury find the defendant James Eagen Holmes guilty of murder in the first degree after deliberation."

Jurors left unanswered Part B of every count: "Did you find the defendant not guilty on this count solely based on the defense of insanity?" And they answered "yes" to Part C of each three-part count: "Did the defendant use, or possess and threaten the use of, a deadly weapon?"

The process took about an hour.

Legal experts following the trial were shocked by the jury’s speed.

“I am very surprised the jury is back with a verdict so soon, especially since the judge told the jury it had to work through each and every count,” said Rick Kornfeld, a former assistant U.S. attorney. “It’s hard to read the tea leaves regarding a short deliberation in a long trial, but it certainly means that the losing side was not in the game in the eyes of the jury in terms of the strength of their argument."

Holmes had faced 165 felony counts, including murder in the first degree, in the July 20, 2012, multiplex massacre, which left 12 people dead and 70 others wounded in one of the worst mass shootings on American soil.

The trial now enters the penalty phase. Samour told jurors that court will be in session again on Wednesday and admonished them not to talk about the case and to ignore all media reports in their five days off.

“You’ll have two options,” Samour told the jury after the verdicts were read, “life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Those are the only choices.”

That Holmes carefully planned the horrific attack, cased the suburban Denver movie theater, strapped on an assault rifle, a shotgun and a Glock pistol and blasted his way through a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" was never in doubt...

Doesn't look like he's getting any slack for his psychiatric illness. He was pretty messed up in the head, but hey, it's premeditated and the jury believes he retained moral reasoning, apparently.