Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler announced his team will seek the death penalty against James Holmes, accused of shooting 70 people, killing 12 during a midnight screening in Aurora Colorado, the New York Times reported. "For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death," Brauchler said in court on Monday.
Holmes' attorneys sought to have their client plead guilty to the shooting in exchange for life in prison with no chance of parole, news reports said. Prosecutors rejected it, calling it a mere ploy.
Although Holmes has not entered an insanity plea, his lawyers have called him mentally ill, suggesting that their defense will center on his mental state at that it may have contributed the mass shooting. Pundits believe that an insanity defense may be Holmes' defense team's only option, since there is little doubt that he was the gunman.
"One of the issues the prosecution needs to look at is, is there a likelihood that doctors, and then a jury, could find that James Holmes was insane at the time of the crime?", Karen Steinhauser said. Steinhauser is a former prosecutor who is now an adjunct professor at the University of Denver's law school.
Weeks before the killings, Holmes saw a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado, Denver when he was a neuroscience student. His records, including any history of mental illness and a notebook that he reportedly sent to the psychiatrist the day before the shooting could be used potentially in this case, New York Times said.
In the past months since the shootings, police officers offered descriptions of the evening Holmes reportedly killed 12, and injured dozens more at an Aurora Century 16 multiplex in July.
Last week, lawyers filed legal papers saying that, "Mr. Holmes is currently willing to resolve the case to bring the proceedings to a speedy and definite conclusion for all involved" if prosecutors dropped the death penalty punishment. Prosecutors dismissed the move as a mere publicity stunt.
