Deliberations begin Wednesday in Colo. theater shooting

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- After a day of closing arguments that sparred over the mental health of James Holmes, jurors will begin deliberating Wednesday on whether he was legally sane the July night three years ago when he unleashed a deadly attack inside a packed movie theater near Denver.

The jury begins deliberating at 9 a.m. MT. If a verdict is reached, there will be a 3-hour delay before it is read so family and media can arrive at the court.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the July 20, 2012, rampage that left 12 dead and 70 wounded.

Although defense psychiatrists maintained Holmes suffers from severe mental illness, "he wasn't insane" when he fired on the late-night audience in Aurora that showed up for the latest Batman installment, the prosecutor said Tuesday during his two-hour closing statement.

Attacking Holmes' insanity defense, Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler dismissed the diagnoses and brain scans indicating schizophrenia, saying they did not prove that Holmes' ability to tell right from wrong was impaired, which is the legal standard.

He reiterated that two court-appointed psychiatrists had found Holmes sane at the time of the attack. The 27-year-old former neuroscience researcher at the University of Colorado-Denver could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

"The law doesn't care what he thinks is right or wrong," Brauchler told jurors on the 49th day of the trial. "It cares whether he thinks that society thinks it's right or wrong."

In his final argument, however, defense attorney Dan King told jurors they "cannot divorce the mental illness from this case or from Mr. Holmes. Because the mental illness caused this to happen. Only the mental illness and nothing else."

He said that to "pretend that Mr. Holmes is not mentally ill is misconstruing the evidence."

Recapping evidence, testimony, victims' stories and Holmes' statements to doctors, Brauchler painted a portrait of deception and meticulous planning leading to the shooting.

"He wasn't insane when he did it," Brauchler said, interspersing his argument with photos of the victims. "We know that he intends to kill everyone that he can inside the theater."

Some of the evidence Brauchler said undercut Holmes' claim of insanity:

• He bought 700 rounds of ammunition, including steel-penetrating bullets for his AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle.

• He went to a shooting range far from town five times and practiced on life-sized silhouettes of people.

• He visited several theaters before choosing the Century 16 for a midnight premiere of the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.

• He had normal conversations with parents and friends while he was amassing an arsenal and booby-trapping his apartment.

• He bought air fresheners to disguise the smell of gasoline from the improvised explosive devices he was making.

"Reject this claim that he couldn't form the intent to murder," Brauchler concluded. "That guy was sane beyond a reasonable doubt and he needs to be held accountable for what he did."

King challenged the prosecutor's argument that Holmes' actions and statements to a university psychiatrist before the rampage proved he had acted logically.

"If his thought process was logical and what he wanted to accomplish was the mission and not get treated, why go see a psychiatrist at all?" King asked the jury. "It's not logical. It defies logic. That's the psychotic process."

"There isn't a lot of logic to what Mr. Holmes said," King stated. "That's because he's mentally ill."

The 19 jurors received painstaking instructions Tuesday morning on the 165 charges Holmes faces. Judge Carlos Samour Jr. distributed packets of verdict forms that stretched to 658 pages.

Some family members embraced and wept as Samour read the names of the 12 who died, during his hour-long presentation.

Samour reminded jurors they must distinguish between mental disease and passion growing out of anger in deciding whether Holmes should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. He also reiterated that prosecutors have the burden to prove that Holmes was legally sane and knew right from wrong when he committed the attack.

If the jury finds Holmes not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be sent to a state mental hospital and would not face further prosecution, the judge said.

If Holmes is found guilty of murder, the case then moves to penalty phase to determine whether he is to be executed.

Contributing: KUSA-TV, Denver.