Aurora movie theater gunman James Holmes will be sentenced to life in prison after a Colorado jury on Friday failed to unanimously agree to sentence him to death for killing 12 people more than three years ago.
The nine-woman, three-man jury returned after less than seven hours of deliberations with the understanding that their lack of a decision would mean Holmes would not be sentenced to death but rather, life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The same jury rejected an insanity defense in July and found Holmes guilty of 24 counts of murder — two for each person he killed on July 20, 2012.
“I would have liked a different outcome for the victims, and I’ve already apologized to them,” District Attorney George Brauchler told reporters after the verdict. “Whatever we did that wasn’t good enough to convince all twelve [jurors], that’s my responsibility, and we own that.”
The jury had swiftly ruled that there were substantial “aggravating factors” to consider the death penalty for Holmes, and that the defense’s arguments against execution didn’t outweigh those factors.
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