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Holmes' Lawyers Broaden Challenge to Death Penalty - ABC News
Battling to save their client's life, lawyers for theater shooting defendant James Holmes broadened their attack on the death penalty, saying in motions released Tuesday that the sentence is so unevenly imposed in Colorado and so rarely carried out that it is unconstitutional.
The lawyers also argued that death penalty opponents should be allowed to serve on Holmes' jury, and that victims of the shooting shouldn't be permitted to testify when the jury is deciding punishment.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The trial is scheduled to start in February.
The defense filed 20 motions last week that were made public Tuesday. Six were challenges to the death penalty, arguing among other things that Colorado executes prisoners so rarely that it falls under the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The state has executed only one person since 1967.
The defense also said Colorado prosecutors are so inconsistent in whether they seek the death penalty that it has become arbitrary and capricious, again violating the Constitution.
To support their case, defense lawyers quoted Gov. John Hickenlooper, who granted an indefinite reprieve to a death row inmate in May. Hickenlooper cited doubts about the fairness of Colorado's death penalty system and noted inconsistencies from county to county.
Holmes' lawyers began questioning the death penalty even before prosecutors announced in April that they would seek it. They filed other challenges in May and August. Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. rejected some but hasn't ruled on others.
In another motion, the defense asked Samour not to automatically disqualify potential jurors because they oppose the death penalty.
Citing social science research, the defense said barring death penalty opponents produces juries that are partial to the prosecution, biased against the defense, and more likely to convict a defendant. That violates Holmes' right to a fair trial, they said.
Another motion says that if jurors convict Holmes, they should be taken to see Colorado's death chamber as well as the prison holding death-row inmates before they deliberate his sentence.
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I was just outside hanging out the washing, when this story came over my 11am radio news.
Yes, take the jurors to see the chamber of death...where dealing in death is its sole purpose.
Tell them that if they vote for a death sentence that they will be party to the premeditated, cold-blooded killing of a human being by the State.
Death penalty opponents are not allowed to serve on Holmes' jury?
A total outrage!
Battling to save their client's life, lawyers for theater shooting defendant James Holmes broadened their attack on the death penalty, saying in motions released Tuesday that the sentence is so unevenly imposed in Colorado and so rarely carried out that it is unconstitutional.
The lawyers also argued that death penalty opponents should be allowed to serve on Holmes' jury, and that victims of the shooting shouldn't be permitted to testify when the jury is deciding punishment.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The trial is scheduled to start in February.
The defense filed 20 motions last week that were made public Tuesday. Six were challenges to the death penalty, arguing among other things that Colorado executes prisoners so rarely that it falls under the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The state has executed only one person since 1967.
The defense also said Colorado prosecutors are so inconsistent in whether they seek the death penalty that it has become arbitrary and capricious, again violating the Constitution.
To support their case, defense lawyers quoted Gov. John Hickenlooper, who granted an indefinite reprieve to a death row inmate in May. Hickenlooper cited doubts about the fairness of Colorado's death penalty system and noted inconsistencies from county to county.
Holmes' lawyers began questioning the death penalty even before prosecutors announced in April that they would seek it. They filed other challenges in May and August. Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. rejected some but hasn't ruled on others.
In another motion, the defense asked Samour not to automatically disqualify potential jurors because they oppose the death penalty.
Citing social science research, the defense said barring death penalty opponents produces juries that are partial to the prosecution, biased against the defense, and more likely to convict a defendant. That violates Holmes' right to a fair trial, they said.
Another motion says that if jurors convict Holmes, they should be taken to see Colorado's death chamber as well as the prison holding death-row inmates before they deliberate his sentence.
#####
I was just outside hanging out the washing, when this story came over my 11am radio news.
Yes, take the jurors to see the chamber of death...where dealing in death is its sole purpose.
Tell them that if they vote for a death sentence that they will be party to the premeditated, cold-blooded killing of a human being by the State.
Death penalty opponents are not allowed to serve on Holmes' jury?
A total outrage!
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