Roundup: Hearing starts on U.S. movie theater gunman's final sentencing

The hearing began Monday on the final sentencing of Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes and the judge will make the final decision Wednesday regarding Holmes' imprisonment.

Monday was the first of a three-day hearing that will put the finishing touches on the mass murderer's sentence. In the day, almost 40 victim impact statements were heard.

"This was tougher than the trial," said District Attorney George Brauchler, summing up the horrific, rapid-fire testimony that filled a packed courtroom Monday.

Judge Carlos Samour Jr. will decide whether Holmes will serve his life in prison consecutively to the 12 consecutive life sentences he has already been decreed.

In 2012, Holmes admitted not guilty by reason of insanity to killing 12 and injuring 70 after ripping hundreds of bullets into an unsuspecting movie audience.

A jury of nine women and three men rejected Holmes' insanity plea last month, finding him guilty on 165 counts, but two weeks ago unexpectedly spared him the Death Penalty when one of 12 jurors did not concur.

Gut wrenching testimony filled the courtroom Monday from dozens of victims, capped by a reading of wheelchair-bound Ashley Moser's testimony by prosecuting attorney Lisa Teesch-Maguire, that caused tears to flow from attorneys, media members and friends and families of the victims.

The pregnant Moser lost her baby and fell paralyzed on top of her 6-year-old daughter who was hit by another Holmes bullet that penetrated her stomach.

Moser, now 28, sat in a wheelchair crying continuously during her testimony.

With emotions flowing throughout the courtroom, fathers talked about generations of their families lost forever, while soft-spoken, 9-year-old Jack Wilert remembered when first hearing his uncle John (Larimer) had been killed, "everybody started crying."

Other victims described suffering from Post-Traumatic Shock Syndrome, feeling fear and despair, losing faith in God, being betrayed by their government, and hiding from people and the public, as they wrestled with the deaths of their loved ones.

Holmes, heavily medicated on anti-psychotic drugs, wore a vacuous smile throughout the trial. He was, however, for the first time dressed in burgundy jail clothes, his hands handcuffed in his lap and his legs shackled together.

On July 16, Jurors convicted Holmes on 24 counts of first-degree murder, two counts for each person murdered in the July 20, 2012, attack on a theater audience watching the midnight premiere of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."

Tom Teves, father of the murdered Alex Teves, 24, who was shot in the head by a Holmes bullet, also pointed the finger at the defense team, "who defended a coward and are themselves cowards."

Other families criticized the process that spared Holmes from execution, calling him "evil" and a "monster," who deserved to die for his act. Endit