James Holmes was legally sane but suffered from serious mental illness — a distinction his jury apparently understood when it refused Friday to send him to death row.
He will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. It is a just and appropriate sentence — and one that prosecutors could have accepted two years ago when it was offered to them, sparing the state a futile and costly trial.
Prosecutors badly misjudged the likely temperament of jurors and how they might be moved by the carnage of Holmes’ crimes into agreeing to a death sentence.
With this verdict, Colorado’s death penalty statute takes another body blow. After all, if not Holmes, who exactly would deserve this penalty? His crime has virtually no rival here. The roll call of dead and maimed bodies and hearts that he left behind when he walked out of that Aurora theater three years ago is without modern precedent.
The fact that the jury couldn’t bring itself to put Holmes to death after finding him legally sane and thus knowing the difference between right and wrong speaks volumes about the outdated nature of the statute. And it confirms that the death penalty will continue to be applied with unconscionable randomness in this state — almost as if killers are assigned to death row by lottery.
Even had Holmes, 27, been sentenced to death, no prudent person would have bet on his execution. Recent history records only one execution in Colorado since 1967, suggesting Holmes had a very good chance of dying of other causes — or having his sentence revised for legal reasons.
The only person put to death in recent decades, Gary Davis in 1997, had opposed further appeals.
The radically inconsistent way in which the penalty is applied in this state is reason enough to abolish it. Other powerful reasons include the mind-boggling legal costs that pile up year after year and the fact that a death sentence keeps a killer in the news long after he should have become another nondescript prisoner.
It’s time for Gov. John Hickenlooper, who called for a “conversation” on the death penalty two years ago, to actively get behind a bill for next year to get rid of it.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
