Victims remain focus of trial
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — One after the other, their faces flashed on an overhead screen: the aspiring sports broadcaster, the caring dad, the smiling 6-year-old girl a prosecutor described as “forever our kindergartner.”
Photos of the 12 people who died in the Colorado theater shooting were the last images jurors saw before starting deliberations today over whether the gunman, James Holmes, was legally insane when he opened fire on a crowded movie premiere.
In closing arguments Tuesday, District Attorney George Brauchler kept the focus on the shooting’s heavy toll on unsuspecting victims, weaving their stories into a larger narrative that tried to show Holmes was legally sane when he carried out the attack almost three years ago.
But defense attorney Daniel King presented Holmes as a kind of victim himself, of schizophrenia so consuming he was unable to tell right from wrong when he slipped into the auditorium, injuring another 70 before his gun jammed and he surrendered. The images King showed jurors were of Holmes looking dazed and sullen with fiery orange hair after the July 20, 2012, attack.
“The mental illness caused this to happen. Only the mental illness caused this, and nothing else,” King said.
Brauchler and King made their final appeals to jurors Tuesday before handing over the case.
Defense attorneys are asking for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, which would send Holmes to the state mental hospital for an indefinite commitment.
