Judge Formally Sentences James Holmes to Life in Prison
Posted: August 26, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, U.S. News | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, Associated Press, Aurora, Batman, Capital punishment, CNN, Colorado, Denver, Insanity defense, John Hickenlooper, Jury, Life imprisonment, Movie theater, murder Leave a commentProsecutors have said the jury was divided on the sentence, with 11 favoring death and one favoring life without parole. Under Colorado law, jurors must be unanimous to impose the death penalty, so Holmes automatically got a life sentence.
Sadie Gurman reports: James Holmes was an angry quitter who gave up on life and turned his hatred into murder and mayhem against innocent victims in a Colorado movie theater, the judge said Wednesday before formally sentencing him to life in prison.
“We know that is very, very hard for people to see. We cannot feel the depths of your pain. We can only listen to everything you have expressed, and we pray for you…We are very sorry this tragedy happened, and sorry everyone has suffered so much.”
— Arlene Holmes
Samour contrasted Holmes’ bloody assault with the compassion of a juror who voted for a life sentence instead of the death penalty. And he noted the trial was fair, even if some victims were disappointed that Holmes didn’t get the death penalty.

Judge Carlos Samour sits on the bench during the sentencing phase of James Holmes’ trial, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015, at Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)
“It is almost impossible to comprehend how a human being is capable of such acts.”
— Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr.
Samour formally sentenced Holmes to life in prison without parole for the murders of 12 people. He also was sentencing Holmes to more than to 3,200 additional years for attempted murder and an explosives conviction.
The judge had no other sentencing option on the murder charges after a jury earlier this month did not unanimously agree that Holmes should get the death penalty. Samour issued his sentence after two days of testimony from survivors of the attack, including first responders.

District Attorney George Brauchler listens to victim statements being read in court during the sentencing phase in James Holmes’ trial.
“Jurors rejected Holmes’ insanity plea, convicting him of murdering 12 people and trying to kill 70 others when he opened fire on a packed theater in suburban Denver on July 20, 2012.”
But he first spent more than half an hour defending the integrity of the justice system and disputing complaints that the trial was a waste of time. He noted the proceedings gave family members an opportunity to tell the world about their slain loved ones and provided survivors the chance to talk about their ordeal.
“I believe in the system. I said that before, and I’ll say it again. I believe in the system.”
— Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr.
Samour disputed some victims’ suggestion that Holmes would have an easy life behind bars, noting prison is harsh and restrictive.
More than 100 victims and survivors testified this week about the searing physical and emotional scars the 2012 shooting has left. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Jury Finds Colorado Theater Shooter Guilty of Murder
Posted: July 16, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, Aurora, Capital punishment, Colorado, Cumulus Media Networks, District Attorney, Insanity defense, Jury, Midnight Massacre, murder, The Dark Knight Rises Leave a commentCENTENNIAL, Colo. — Jurors convicted Colorado theater shooter James Holmes on Thursday in the chilling 2012 attack on defenseless moviegoers at a midnight Batman premiere, rejecting defense arguments that the former graduate student was insane and driven to murder by delusions.
The 27-year-old Holmes, who had been working toward his Ph.D. in neuroscience, could get the death penalty for the massacre that left 12 people dead and dozens of others wounded.
Jurors took about 13 hours over a day and a half to review all 165 charges. The same panel must now decide whether Holmes should pay with his life.
The verdict came almost three years after Holmes, dressed head-to-toe in body armor, slipped through the emergency exit of the darkened theater in suburban Denver and replaced the Hollywood violence of the movie “The Dark Knight Rises” with real human carnage.
His victims included two active-duty servicemen, a single mom, a man celebrating his 27th birthday and an aspiring broadcaster who had survived a mall shooting in Toronto. Several died shielding friends or loved ones. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Verdict Reached in James Holmes Colorado ‘Midnight Massacre’ Shooter Trial
Posted: July 16, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, U.S. News | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, Associated Press, Capital punishment, Closing argument, Colorado, Denver, District Attorney, Insanity defense, Jury, Midnight Massacre, Premiere, The Dark Knight Rises 1 CommentDEVELOPING: The jury in the Colorado theater shooting trial of James Holmes has reached a verdict, which will be announced at 6:15pm ET….
[Fox News]
Charles C. W. Cooke: Happy New Year, Happy New Gun-Control Nonsense
Posted: January 1, 2015 Filed under: Self Defense, Think Tank | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, AK-47, Assault weapon, California, Dianne Feinstein, District Attorney, Federal Assault Weapons Ban, National Review, Presidency of Bill Clinton, United States 2 CommentsCharles C. W. Cooke writes:
…In the space of just 144 words, Gopnik has managed to: 1) conflate the supposed problem of “assault weapons” with the actions of the man who murdered Richard Martinez’s son (when, in fact, that killer did not use a rifle, but instead used a trio of bog-standard handguns that were legal even in California); 2) propose that those handguns “should never have been in the hands of a lunatic” (when, in fact, that “lunatic” passed the federal and state background checks that Gopnik’s ilk routinely sell as a panacea for our problems); and 3) pretend that there is any evidence whatsoever that to “reinstate assault-weapons bans” would likely “stop the next massacre” — which, as even the Obama administration’s DOJ concedes, there is not….(read more)
Rewind: City Pays $25,000 To Man Arrested For Bringing A Gun To Movies
Posted: June 1, 2014 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Law & Justice, Self Defense, U.S. News | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, Concealed carry in the United States, Daily Caller, Dark Knight Rises, Greg Campbell, Gun, Theatre, Thornton Colorado 2 CommentsFor The Daily Caller, Greg Campbell reports: A man who was arrested for carrying a holstered handgun into a movie theater a week after the Aurora shootings in 2012 received a $25,000 settlement check from the city of Thornton last week, according to Denver’s 7News.
Jim Mapes had a concealed-carry permit and said he’d carried his gun to the same theater several times in the past. Another theater-goer called 911, saying a man with a weapon had just entered a movie theater. He was originally charged with brandishing the weapon, which Mapes denied.
“It never left my holster,” he told the station. And although the gun was carried openly rather than being concealed, his lawyer said that’s never been against the law in Thornton. Read the rest of this entry »
CHILL: Reporter Faces Jail Time for Protecting Sources
Posted: November 9, 2013 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, BEN SHAPIRO, Dark Knight Rises, James Eagan Holmes, Judith Miller, New York Court of Appeals 2 CommentsIn July 2012, Fox reporter Jana Winter reported that James Holmes, the shooter in the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre who murdered 12 people during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises, had sent a University of Colorado psychiatrist a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people.” The notebook had pictures of a stick-figure shooting other stick figures. She got the information, she reported, from “law enforcement sources.”
Now, Winter may lose her journalistic freedom. Thanks to a Colorado court ruling stating that Winter’s failure to disclose her sources deprived Holmes of a fair trial by violating a judicial gag order, and a New York court’s agreement, Winter may be forced to disclose the source of the information or face jail time in Colorado. As Judith Miller, a journalist who spent 85 days in jail to protect her sources, writes, “Given the broader assault on journalists and a free and independent press every American should know Jana’s name.”