Days before the three year anniversary of the Aurora movie theater massacre, shooter James Holmes was found guilty on July 16, Thursday, of multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. The verdict, which comes after a grueling 10-week trial, will allow the prosecution to pursue the death penalty for the Colorado gunman.
A jury of 12 individuals composed of three men and nine women took around two days to consider all the arguments of both the defense and prosecution before finding Holmes guilty on all 165 charges against him.
The defense did not deny that Holmes was the perpetrator of the shootings, but instead argued that the former University of Colorado graduate student was in a diminished capacity when the shootings occurred according to Reuters.
But the prosecution mounted a counter argument with the help of expert testimony from two psychiatrists selected by the court who determined that Holmes was legally sane when he planned and carried out the attacks.
On July 20, 2012, during a midnight showing of a Batman movie, Holt was said to have entered the Aurora movie theater in Colorado and preceded to fire at the viewers from the front of the theater. The rampage took the lives of 12 individuals, including a six-year-old girl, and wounding at least 58 others according to a report by the New York Times.
The trial now proceeds to the sentencing phase which could take weeks to finish, where both sides are again expected to call multiple witnesses to prove or disprove Holmes' mental state.