US cinema shooter escapes death penalty

The American gunman who stormed a Batman movie premiere and killed 12 cinemagoers escaped the death penalty Friday but will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

A Colorado jury failed to unanimously agree on execution for 27-year-old former graduate student James Holmes, obliging the judge to impose a sentence of life without parole.

Last month, the killer had been convicted on 12 counts of murder in the first degree and scores more charges including murder, attempted murder and explosives possession. 

But defence counsel argued he has a mental illness and urged jurors to show clemency, an appeal apparently heeded by at least one of the panel of nine women and three men.

On each of the 12 murder counts that could have merited the death penalty, the jury said in a statement read to the court: "We do not have a unanimous final sentencing verdict on this count."

District Judge Carlos Samour thanked jurors for their service and set August 24 to 26 as the dates for Holmes's formal sentencing. Holmes attacked the packed premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Century 16 theater in Aurora on July 20, 2012, spraying bullets into the dark auditorium.

Clad in body armor and with peculiar dyed-orange hair, he fired hundreds of rounds before police halted a spree that left 12 people dead, including a six-year-old child.

Three years later, in July of this year, he was convicted on 165 charges, the jury rejecting the defense's argument that he was not guilty because of his mental illness.

Robert Sullivan, grandfather of the youngest victim, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, criticized the jury.

"They didn't buy his sanity ... and then they bailed at the end. No, I’m sorry," Sullivan said. "It's not justice. Our loved ones are still gone." The prosecution had argued that Holmes should be executed through lethal injection.

"He picked the time, manner and method of their deaths. Does he deserve a life sentence for that?" District Attorney George Brauchler said in his closing arguments Thursday. 

"This is about justice."