AURORA | The first day of deliberations in the Aurora theater shooting trial came to an end with no verdict Wednesday.
The jury — nine women and three men — started their deliberations Wednesday morning and, based on their questions for the judge, appear to be focused on doctors’ sanity evaluations of James Holmes.
The last question jurors sent to the court around 2 p.m. asked if the reports and notes from the four doctors who examined Holmes — two of whom found him sane, two found him insane — were admitted into evidence. Judge Carlos Samour Jr. told them those reports and notes were not admitted as evidence.
Early in the day, they asked for a white board and Samour said his staff would get them one.
Later, the jury asked if the court could give them a guide so they could more easily find specific items among the thousands of pieces of evidence admitted in the trial.
But Samour told them they could not have any sort of guide to the thousands of pieces of evidence admitted during the three-month trial.
The issue with a guide, Samour said, is that it would require some sort of description of each item of evidence, and prosecutors and defense lawyers would likely disagree over that description.
“Unfortunately they have to do it the hard way,” he said.
The jurors told the court Wednesday they plan to deliberate each day from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until a verdict is reached.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 70 others during the July 2012 attack on a packed Aurora movie theater. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.