Justice

[Catwoman]

Going to just leave this here with no comment other than I hope it's the last time we read this bastard's name until someone gives him the Jeffrey Dahmer treatment in prison.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/16/jury-reaches-verdict-in-colorado-theater-shooting-trial-james-holmes/?intcmp=latestnews

[Cobblepot4Mayor]

I just cannot believe that this "A1 nut boy" has been languishing around for three years to get this verdict. Justice is not so swift as it sometimes can be in a Batman adventure. I think a subconscious reason of their appeal for us all.

I was watching a twisted documentary on remnants of the Ku Klux Klan in America the other night and besides from a total racist fool who had the stupidity to proclaim love and admiration for the guitar chords of one Jimi Hendrix, they had some sick members wearing Batman t-shirts with slogans. Nothing annoys me more than when real thugs take the images of the Batman world and exploit them for evil as James Holmes also did.

[Catwoman]

Pisses me off when any kind of innocence is exploited that way.

[The Laughing Fish]

I was watching a twisted documentary on remnants of the Ku Klux Klan in America the other night and besides from a total racist fool who had the stupidity to proclaim love and admiration for the guitar chords of one Jimi Hendrix, they had some sick members wearing Batman t-shirts with slogans. Nothing annoys me more than when real thugs take the images of the Batman world and exploit them for evil as James Holmes also did.

Typical KKK degenerates, hate non-white/Anglo ethnic groups but admire what they produce. I'm actually shocked they would even like Batman given that he's created by Jewish men. If the KKK weren't so dangerous, they'd be a complete laughing stock.

I see some people argue that the murderer is mentally ill and shouldn't be given a death sentence. But then again, there are plenty of other mentally ill and even psychotic people who don't commit crimes, never mind committing a massacre like in that theater, so I doubt that the culprit wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. Hopefully this verdict can help the victims' families move on with their lives, even though I can't imagine how extremely difficult that will be.

[Catwoman]

The planning, the notebooks, the booby trapped room, yea the son of a bitch knew exactly what he was doing.

[johnnygobbs]

I was watching a twisted documentary on remnants of the Ku Klux Klan in America the other night and besides from a total racist fool who had the stupidity to proclaim love and admiration for the guitar chords of one Jimi Hendrix, they had some sick members wearing Batman t-shirts with slogans. Nothing annoys me more than when real thugs take the images of the Batman world and exploit them for evil as James Holmes also did.

Typical KKK degenerates, hate non-white/Anglo ethnic groups but admire what they produce. I'm actually shocked they would even like Batman given that he's created by Jewish men. If the KKK weren't so dangerous, they'd be a complete laughing stock.

I see some people argue that the murderer is mentally ill and shouldn't be given a death sentence. But then again, there are plenty of other mentally ill and even psychotic people who don't commit crimes, never mind committing a massacre like in that theater, so I doubt that the culprit wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. Hopefully this verdict can help the victims' families move on with their lives, even though I can't imagine how extremely difficult that will be.

The defence team will of course argue that Holmes was mentally ill if they think it can mitigate his sentence.  That doesn't make it necessarily so, but that's the legal system for you...lawyers need to make every possible, sometimes even implausible case.

I don't think Holmes was mentally ill, at least not in the sense that his lawyers have argued; he had full control and awareness of what he was doing.  It was a planned and relatively methodical act of violence, not a sudden outburst.  As mentioned elsewhere, he even booby-trapped his own home.

On a side point, I've read it suggested that he was failing in his studies and personal life, and that this was his apparent basis for going on a shooting spree.  Not that it would make a blind bit of difference if he was, but I understand he was studying for a PhD in neuroscience.  That means he already had a Masters.  I'm not sure how that constitutes as an academic failure.

I know it's a side-point that won't mean much to many people, but if Holmes' failings in life were apparently what prompted him to behave like a psychopath and murder multiple innocents, how come real 'failures' (people who are unemployed, homeless, barely making ends meet, have limited educational opportunities etc.) don't behave this way?

[The Laughing Fish]

I know it's a side-point that won't mean much to many people, but if Holmes' failings in life were apparently what prompted him to behave like a psychopath and murder multiple innocents, how come real 'failures' (people who are unemployed, homeless, barely making ends meet, have limited educational opportunities etc.) don't behave this way?

Exactly. Lots of people have psychological problems, particularly the homeless, but they're not that deranged to commit a sinister act of violence like this bastard did. What he did was something else. I have read that schizophrenia is an extremely dangerous mental disorder and people who suffer from it are likely to do harm to others. I had an uncle who might've been diagnosed with it and I've heard some alarming stories about what he did to strangers and threatened his own intermediate family (though it's certainly nothing compared to the Aurora massacre). From what I understand, it's an illness where sufferers lose their sense of judgment and live in a world of delusion. Don't take my word for granted or anything. I'm far from an expert on the subject, but I've heard that psychologists tend to play down a little bit about the illness because they're afraid that mentally ill people could be stigmatised by the general public.

[Catwoman]

Someone who is just deranged or desperate might take a gun and kill a few people, but all the plotting and everything, yea. Like I said, he knew exactly what he was doing.

[johnnygobbs]

Exactly. Lots of people have psychological problems, particularly the homeless, but they're not that deranged to commit a sinister act of violence like this bastard did. What he did was something else. I have read that schizophrenia is an extremely dangerous mental disorder and people who suffer from it are likely to do harm to others. I had an uncle who might've been diagnosed with it and I've heard some alarming stories about what he did to strangers and threatened his own intermediate family (though it's certainly nothing compared to the Aurora massacre). From what I understand, it's an illness where sufferers lose their sense of judgment and live in a world of delusion. Don't take my word for granted or anything. I'm far from an expert on the subject, but I've heard that psychologists tend to play down a little bit about the illness because they're afraid that mentally ill people could be stigmatised by the general public.

Well I have a mental illness, albeit a relatively low-level one (OCD and Anxiety Disorder), so I do have some concerns about the stigmatisation of people with such problems.  I'm lucky in the sense that my problems, although disruptive to my daily life, are part of a neurotic condition, not a psychotic one.  But even if we include many people with psychotic disorders, the truth is that many of them are more of a threat to themselves than they are to other people, and moreover, mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of crime, mainly because they're rarely believed by 'normal' people when they report crimes against them, than perpetrators of them.

That said, James Holmes is clearly a sick, twisted POS but as others have pointed out he most likely knew what he was doing.  He planned his act in advance rather than acted out of spontaneous rage, not that I'm remotely defending the actions of the latter type of criminal.  That in my mind makes him something of a sociopath, a person who tries to maintain a seemingly normal, calm, rational façade to the world whilst coldly devising twisted ways to hurt innocent people.

[The Laughing Fish]

The sentence has been announced: he has been given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. There's no death penalty because the jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision to vote for it.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/us/jury-decides-fate-of-james-holmes-aurora-theater-gunman.html?_r=1