Theatre Trial Sentencing Hearing Day ... I have no idea.

I've completely lost track of what day of the sentencing trial it is. Four or five I think ... maybe. 

Today the jury was back for live testimony. But before they did that the judge polled the jury to find out if anyone had heard about the event in Louisiana. Those who said they had heard about it put their hands up and then were questioned individually. It appears that while some of of the jurors heard about it, none knew any details. 

The "Louisiana event" was the copycat theatre shooting by a man who was mentally ill. There are a lot of differences between the two events, but it certainly doesn't help that it happened during this trial. 

Once they got started the defense called more witnesses, including Dr Metzner. He was a forensic psychiatrist hired by the court to assess Holmes. Well, one of them anyway, the court hired several. The key point with Dr Metzner was that he was not hired by either side nor did he opine that Holmes was legally insane. Unfortunately I didn't get why they questioned him. I didn't really seem to think he had much to say that's important. 

Sometime in the afternoon, I lost track of time, the defense called Chris Holmes, James' younger sister. For the most part they talked about family life. And she said she still loves her brother and misses him. But in general she didn't seem to say anything useful either. 

However I think the fact that no one is testifying about facts and logic, but rather life and feelings, I don't find a lot of it overly useful. But this is the purpose of this part of the hearing, to make the jury feel sorry for Holmes so they don't rule in favour of the death penalty. 

What's interesting is that he's been found guilty of all charges. The minimum he's going to get is life in prison with no parole. Because he wasn't found insane, I don't think he'll be going to a mental institution, but I'm not sure. I can't help but think that locking a seriously mentally ill guy up in prison isn't going to help him in any way. He'll probably end up in isolation and have very little human contact. He's younger than 30, so he'd be stuck like that for over 50 years if he lived to an average old age. I seriously can't help but think that the death penalty might actually be the merciful punishment. It'll be interesting to see how the jury views everything. 

I did hear mention today that they'll probably wrap up phase 2 on Wednesday. This thing is almost over.