Feature: Colorado theater shooter to be sentenced

The Colorado theater shooter James Holmes is going to be sentenced Friday afternoon, either life in prison without parole or death.

The jury decision is expected to be announced at 5 p.m. local time (2300 GMT) Friday, ending one of the most grueling trials in U.S. history when Holmes, the Batman movie shooter, will stand to hear his life-or-death fate.

Lawyers on both sides delivered gripping closing arguments Thursday as a jury of three men and nine women retired to deliberate whether or not to sentence the former Ph.D. neuroscience graduate student to death by lethal injection.

If only one juror chooses "mercy" or "sympathy" for Holmes, he will be spared execution and spend the rest of his life behind bars.

"This building is not called an 'Eye-for-an-eye Center' or a ' Revenge Center', it is called a 'Justice Center', and justice for Holmes is death," District Attorney George Brauchler told the jury, in an attempt to reduce powerful emotions that have run rampant since the trial began.

"The death of a mentally ill person is not justice, no matter how severe (the crime)," countered lead public defense attorney Tamara Brady.

"The measure of our soul is how we treat people who are sick and damaged, and James Holmes is sick and damaged," Brady argued passionately, adding "His soul was screaming for help while his mind was drowning in illness."

As Brady began her 40-minute closing argument, more than 20 family members of the deceased stood and exited the courtroom, staging an impromptu walkout, as Brady quoted all seven psychiatrists who said her client was "mentally ill".

Proceedings began 102 days ago and have featured a staggering 306 witnesses, 2,695 pieces of evidence, and painful, numbing testimony from first responders, family members, and even the parents of the mass murderer.

The jury rejected Holmes' "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea on July 16, finding him guilty of 164 counts of murder and attempted murder.

On July 20, 2012, Holmes, brandishing the weapons and dressed from head-to-toe in body armor, walked through the exit door of the nearby Century 16 Theater showing the midnight premier of "The Dark Knight Rises," and unleashed hundreds of bullets into the unsuspecting audience, killing 12 and inuring 70.

Legal experts have predicted both outcomes to the final sentencing hearing, but most think a Death Penalty decision is inevitable based on the jury's three rulings against Holmes in the past month.

"This decision is much different, it is final and the jury knows what is at stake," said Karen Steinhauser, an award winning former chief prosecutor in the Denver District Attorney's office.

"It will be much harder than they think to sentence (Holmes) to death when they have been staring at him for three months."

Holmes, heavily sedated on anti-psychotic medication since three months after the July 20, 2012 shooting, sat chained to the floor at the defense table listening without emotion to the closing arguments.

His parents Bob and Arlene Holmes have sat behind him in the gallery since the trial began, and Thursday bowed their heads frequently during Brauchler's 40-minute closing argument.

Brauchler used a PowerPoint presentation to punctuate his position, begging with a picture of the theater's exit door.

"Through this door is horror: bullets...blood...brains and bodies," Brauchler began.

His argument ended with a collage of all 12 victims, mostly young people in their 20s, with a loud recording of a frantic "911 " emergency call made from the theater during the attack.

While the sounds of loud gunfire and screams boomed throughout the stunned courtroom, each of the 12 faces of the victims on the screen slowly vanished, leaving finally the smiling face of six- year-old Veronica Moser, the only child killed by Holmes, who bled to death from a gunshot wound to the stomach.

Family members were caught unprepared for Brauchler's showing, and many cried.

Brauchler told the jury a life sentence without parole is not enough punishment for one murder, let alone the 12 people Holmes gunned down.

"The tragic death of these people cannot be answered by another death, please...no more death," Brady finished her plea. "He will be punished for the rest of his life."

Holmes' bullets killed 11 people under the age of 32, and sentencing testimony this week has featured emotional testimony from mothers, fathers, spouses and siblings of the deceased.

"You expect to see your parents die, but not your children," said witness Amanda Medek earlier this week.

"You cannot get justice for those who have become part of the living dead," Brauchler said of the victims' family members, noting the emotional devastation wrought by the shooter's actions.

"For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death...it's death," Brauchler repeated.

Brauchler pointed out that Holmes himself predicted a life sentence outcome when he joined dating sites before the shooting and posted, "will you visit me in prison?"

Brady reiterated her argument that if not for his severe mental illness the "horrible tragedy would never have happened."

"There by the grace of God goes me or my child," Brady said with emotion in her voice, pointing at Holmes, and emphasizing his schizophrenia struck "like lightening."

Brady said Holmes, then a 24-year-old University of Colorado graduate student, had lost his love and career, had no prior criminal history and "never broke the laws, never broke the rules, and had never even been disrespectful or rude."

"Justice without mercy is raw revenge, and mercy is what makes us civilized," she said.

"When it's all done, you go home by yourself, and when you wake up in the middle of the night, you will answer only to your own conscience," Brady said, noting that the Death Penalty ruling is a "personal, moral decision." Endite