In her attempt to persuade jurors last week in the Aurora theater shooting trial to sentence her client to life in prison, defense attorney Tamara Brady focused on one factor above all others.
“It is undisputed,” Brady emphasized to jurors, “that he is seriously mentally ill.”
As the jurors resume deliberations Monday morning over punishment for the e, no factor looms so large in their decision as James Holmes’ mental health. But legal research shows there is no consensus on how that factor may affect the jury’s decision.
Studies reveal that the presence of mental illness may make jurors more likely or less likely to sentence a defendant to death. What inspires mercy in some jurors may provoke sternness in others.
In short, depending on how jurors view it, mental illness may be the thing most likely to spare Holmes from the death penalty or one of the things most likely to condemn him.
“Mental illness can act as a double-edged sword,” said Scott Sund by, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law who has studied juror decision-making in death penalty cases.
The current deliberations are distinct.
For the first time in three months, jurors in the theater shooting trial are making a decision that is not based solely on facts. Instead, they must weigh the things about that suggest lenience — his mental illness, his relatively young age, his happy, trouble-free youth — against his calculated attack on the Century Aurora 16 theater that also wounded 70 people in addition to the 12 killed.
And, then, jurors must make a moral decision on whether to keep going toward a possible death sentence.
WATCH:
In legal terms, this step is when jurors weigh “mitigating” factors against “aggravating” factors. Aggravating factors are details — such as the killing of multiple people — that . The law defines mitigating factors as anything that a jury considers as a reason not to sentence a defendant to death.
In this scheme, mental illness can be one of the most powerful mitigating factors, Sundby said. In addition to mental illness, his research shows jurors are most likely not to render a death sentence if a defendant is intellectually disabled or young.
“What jurors are generally looking for when deciding to impose death is, ‘Did this person really choose to go down this path that led to the murders?’ ” Sundby said.
But mental illness is also unique.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with severe mental disabilities and people who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes cannot be sentenced to death. No such protection exists for people who were seriously mentally ill — but still legally sane — when they committed murder.
In addition, when jurors consider whether mental illness is a reason to spare someone’s life, they can also find possibly related reasons to sentence that person to death, Sundby said.
For instance, a defendant’s mental illness — or the medications needed to treat their mental illness — can cause them to appear disconnected or stoic in the courtroom. Jurors often mistake this for indifference, Sundby said.
“The No. 1 reason jurors tell you they impose a death sentence is because the defendant didn’t appear remorseful,” he said.
Legal experts have long debated the perplexing role mental health evidence plays in a death penalty case.
While mental illness is so well established as a mitigating factor that it is mentioned in the for defending a death penalty case, have hinted at jurors’ ambivalence toward it. One study , for instance, found that a mental health defense was the least persuasive of several tested strategies in hypothetical capital cases shown to mock jurors.
In the theater shooting trial, the judge and attorneys on both sides appear to be well aware of the volatile dynamic.
In , Brady, the defense attorney, specifically pointed to Holmes’ lack of emotion in the courtroom and told jurors it was the . His impaired judgment leading up to the shooting was what made the crime so horrible, she said.
“When does the mitigation outweigh the aggravation?” she began her argument. “When the mitigation is the cause of the aggravation.”
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler countered by trying to diminish the significance of Holmes’ mental illness and arguing that the attack was logically planned. For instance, Brauchler pointed to Holmes’ decision to use steel-penetrating ammunition so that his bullets could tear through seats with lethal force.
“The biggest part of this you’ve heard is the mental illness,” he told the jury. “But that’s not enough.”
Jurors will decide in the coming days whether they agree.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp
