Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, carries a T-shirt memorializing the 12 people killed in the attack, outside the Arapahoe County District Court in July 14 (Brennan Linsley, The Associated Press)
The Aurora theater spectacle (trial) appears to be more of a lifetime of guaranteed employment for the defense lawyers than a true trial. They will drag it out as long as possible and then start the interminable appeals process. Every decision the judge has turned them down on will be appealed to every level possible in the court system.
This case is not that hard. Did James Holmes know right from wrong? Yes. Did James Holmes know that killing and maiming defenseless, innocent people is/was wrong? Yes. Did James Holmes, with malice and forethought, shoot into a crowded theater with the purpose in mind of killing and maiming innocent, defenseless people? Yes!
Itap easy to argue that anyone who kills another is “not all there.” But the test of knowing right from wrong is pretty simple and straightforward.
Mark Rawlins, Westminster
This letter was published in the July 26 edition.Is there anybody else who was appalled that an ambitious politician/prosecutor wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to prove that James Holmes was guilty when Holmes had offered to plead guilty? There are those who argue that submitting the families, victims and jury members to revisiting this gruesome crime will provide “closure.” There is nothing in our legal system that requires the law to provide closure, because it can’t. Nothing that happens to Holmes will provide healing for those people. Better that we spent our tax dollars on providing the survivors and families with crisis and grief counseling. The day after Holmes is executed, nobody is going to wake up happier, except maybe the prosecutor who established himself as a hot-shot cowboy who gets the bad guy.
A. Lynn Buschhoff, Denver
We knew District Attorney George Brauchler was running for something when he refused the plea deal: life in prison, death penalty off the table. What are the chances that James Holmes will ever be executed if he gets the death penalty? Some of us are still waiting for Nathan Dunlap to be executed. The result is going to be the same, whether Holmes gets the death penalty or not. But a death penalty case sure looks good on a résumé when you’re running for office.
Brauchler’s use of social media during the trial in spite of the judge’s order not to certainly gives us an indication of how well Brauchler listens. Or maybe he’s just too (self) important to follow the rules.
Linda Barclay, Denver
Beyond the very real toll an additional month’s trial (the sentencing phase) will exact on the survivors and victims’ relatives, there is the specter that no one has yet put a name to.
That being the Hickenlooper Effect.
A jury returns a death penalty verdict, all the appeals are exhausted and a progressive governor stays the execution, denying judicial process and closure to those who were savagely damaged by the perpetrator’s act. Gov. John Hickenlooper did it (in the Nathan Dunlap case), and others of his ilk will follow in his footsteps, making jury verdicts irrelevant and cementing governmental fiat as a trump to judicial process.
Itap a slippery slope, folks, and one that isn’t limited to legal decisions unpopular to a single, politically powerful individual. It can morph into a sort of eminent domain used to remove any law or decision distasteful to those in power.
Mike Dixon, Longmont
This letter was published in the July 26 edition.
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