Death penalty sought for Colorado gunman

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against accused theater gunman James Holmes in the slaying of 12 moviegoers during a showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” last year, the district attorney said in court on Monday.

Holmes, 25, is accused of opening fire inside a suburban Denver theater during a midnight screening of the movie last July in what was one of the deadliest outbursts of gun violence in U.S. history.

Holmes is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in the shooting rampage, which also wounded 58 moviegoers. Another dozen people suffered non-gunshot injuries as they fled the Aurora, Colorado, cinema.

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler had previously announced he had assigned a death penalty lawyer to the prosecution team, and in court documents released March 28 rejected a defense offer to let Holmes plead guilty and serve a life sentence if capital punishment were taken off the table.

Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester entered a not guilty plea for Holmes last month but said he would consider allowing that to be changed to not guilty by reason of insanity.

Last week, public defenders said in a court filing that Holmes was willing to plead guilty and serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole if prosecutors agreed not to seek to have their client executed.

While Holmes’ attorneys said they are prepared to mount an insanity defense, they wrote in the filing that “Mr. Holmes is currently willing to resolve the case to bring the proceedings to a speedy and definite conclusion for all involved.”

Brauchler, in a written response, called the move by the defense improper at this stage of the case and “that it was filed for the intended purpose of generating the predictable pretrial publicity.”

“The only conclusion that an objective reader would reach ... is that the defendant knows that he is guilty, the defense attorneys know he is guilty and that both of them know that he was not criminally insane,” Brauchler wrote.

In court pleadings, public defenders Daniel King and Tamara Brady have said Holmes has been hospitalized twice since his arrest, once for “potential self-inflicted injuries.”

At one point, jailers determined Holmes was a danger to himself and in “immediate need of a psychiatric evaluation.” He was transported by ambulance to a Denver psychiatric ward “where he was held for several days, frequently in restraints,” his lawyers wrote.

(REUTERS)