Victims conflicted over death penalty for theater gunman

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- Marcus Weaver spent nearly three years talking openly about forgiving the man who shot him, killed his friend and caused untold suffering.

As a Christian opposed to capital punishment, he considered forgiveness "a no-brainer" and didn't want to see the gunman executed.

But by the time James Holmes was convicted in the 2012 attack on a Colorado movie theater that left 12 people dead and 70 injured, Weaver had changed his mind about the punishment.

"I feel the sentence that he may get, which is the death penalty, is the only penalty that fits the crime that he committed that night," Weaver said, standing in front of the courthouse where he listened to the tragic and gruesome testimony of fellow moviegoers that ultimately spurred his change of heart.

"What do you do to someone who does something as heinous and cowardly as the shooter did and walk into a theater and shoot at an unarmed crowd? It kind of, like, conflicts you."

Jurors began deliberating Thursday whether Holmes, 27, should spend the rest of his life in prison or die by lethal injection.

In closing arguments, District Attorney George Brauchler played a recording of a 911 call with gunshots and screams in the background as the victims' pictures disappeared one by one from a courtroom TV screen.

"For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death," he said. "Death."

Defense attorney Tamara Brady said the massacre was heartbreaking, but Holmes' schizophrenia was the sole cause.

"The death of a seriously mentally ill man is not justice, no matter how tragic the case is," she said. "Please, no more death."

Weaver's complicated evolution suggested for some, there are no easy answers -- not even for those who most want to see Holmes punished.

Holmes' victims don't agree on what sentence is appropriate for the former neuroscience graduate student.

Nor is there a consensus about whether it will ease their pain and loss.

Robert Sullivan said death would be the only just punishment for the man who killed his 6-year-old granddaughter, Veronica.

But Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, 24, died in the attack, worries about the decades of appeals that typically come with a death sentence.

"If I had my way, he would go to prison the rest of his life and not have to go through the appeals process where we have to look at his face and hear his name again," Phillips said. "We want him behind us."

In convicting Holmes last month of murder, the jury rejected claims he was so mentally ill he couldn't tell right from wrong.