James Holmes, 27, has been charged with 166 counts, mostly murder and attempted murder, in one of the largest mass shootings on American soil, a 2012 rampage in a suburban Denver theater that killed 12 moviegoers and injured 70.
Opening statements in Holmes' trial are scheduled to begin today, nearly three years after the massacre.
Eirz Scott does not plan to attend the trial unless her son, Jarell Brooks, is called to testify. But she knows how she wants the lengthy legal proceeding to end.
A bullet tore a chunk out of her boy's thigh while he was helping a young family escape from the gunman on that summer night. Brooks is 22 now, attending college. He wants to be an attorney. He wants to move on.
"I hope he gets the maximum penalty that is necessary for him," Scott said. When asked if she meant that Holmes should die by lethal injection, she thought for a moment before responding. "I would have to say yes."
Tom Teves' son Alex, 24, had just earned his master's degree in counseling psychology when he was killed shielding his girlfriend from the hail of bullets in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater. Now, Alex's ashes are in an urn in his parents' home. Today, Teves will be in the courtroom.
But the grieving father refuses to be interviewed for any story that includes the name and likeness of the man accused of killing his son. He and his wife, Caren, sent a letter six days ago to 150 media executives asking them to change the way mass murders are covered.
"Remove or limit the name and likeness of the shooter, except for initial identification and when the alleged assailant is still at large," the Teveses wrote in a letter signed by family members and victims from what they describe as "nine of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history." "Elevate the names and likeness of all victims killed."
Anita Busch is part of the Teveses' "No Notoriety" campaign. Her cousin Micayla Medek died in Theater 9 of the Century 16 multiplex on July 20, 2012, during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Medek was 23. She was a "sandwich artist" at Subway. She loved Hello Kitty and was saving money to travel to India.
Busch helped establish the National Compassion Fund/Aurora, which pledges that all money donated will go to the victims: everyone in Theater 9, where a black-clad Holmes tossed gas canisters and unleashed a barrage of bullets, and those in Theater 8 who were injured when shots tore through the wall.
"People in America have no idea how bad it is behind the scenes after a mass shooting," said Busch, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who says she will be in court when the trial begins. "The cameras will go. But the pain never leaves. People need help still.
"America doesn't understand," she said.
A record 9,000 summonses were mailed out in an effort to build a jury of 24 -- 12 jurors and 12 alternates -- for the trial, which is likely to last until Labor Day and become a referendum on the death penalty and how society handles mental illness.
There is no question that the one-time neuroscience graduate student pulled the trigger on that bloody summer night. He was arrested outside the theater with an AR-15 rifle, a Remington shotgun and a Glock pistol. He had booby-trapped his apartment. His hair was dyed bright orange. He said he was the Joker, of Batman fame.
Two years ago, Holmes' public defenders made a standing offer for their client to plead guilty to causing the deaths and injuries if he could serve a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.
But prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty, and Holmes pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. In Colorado, as in a handful of other states, the burden of proof lies with the district attorney, who must now prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Holmes was sane at the time of the rampage.
Jurors must decide whether Holmes is guilty, innocent or innocent by reason of insanity. If he is found guilty, they must decide whether he will be put to death.
Craig Silverman, a former Denver chief deputy district attorney who is now in private practice, said much of the evidence revealed so far could benefit the prosecution, including what he described as Holmes' "premeditation on steroids."
After he failed his graduate oral boards at the University of Colorado Denver, Holmes threatened a professor, according to court documents, and began "a detailed and complex plan to obtain firearms, ammunition, a tear-gas grenade, body armor, a gas mask and a ballistic helmet."
He also set up a profile on an adult website asking, "Will you visit me in prison?" That, Silverman said, "is a dynamite piece of evidence."
Holmes also rigged his apartment to become a potentially lethal booby trap, cranking techno music in an apparent attempt to lure someone into opening his door. One neighbor who went to complain narrowly avoided a fiery explosion by walking away.
Police who searched his apartment also found prescription medications for anxiety and depression, 50 cans and bottles of beer, paper shooting targets, and a Batman mask.
"He was absolutely out of his mind," said Denver defense attorney Iris Eytan, who initially represented Holmes but is no longer involved.
She compared Holmes to schizophrenics she has defended: They are erratic and irrational; they hallucinate.
"He was under the influence of something, and I believe it was mental illness," she said.
Prosecutors say the meticulous plotting shows Holmes was deliberate and calculated, and that evidence suggests he knew right from wrong. For example, Holmes searched online for "rational insanity" and took selfies the night of the shooting, sticking out his tongue and smiling with a Glock under his face.
"He didn't care who he killed or how many he killed, because he wanted to kill all of them," prosecutor Karen Pearson said.
But Karen Steinhauser, an adjunct professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law and a former prosecutor, said the defense will argue that "the planning is all part of his severe mental illness, that it rises to the level of legal insanity and shows that he did not know the difference between right and wrong."
"I want to hear what the experts have to say -- the differing opinions with regards to sanity, what their basis is," Steinhauser said. "This case will come down to a battle of the experts."
Holmes' former psychiatrist and two court-appointed doctors who spent days interviewing him will likely be asked questions that could explain how a college student without so much as a traffic ticket on his record could march up and down the aisles of a stadium-style theater, shooting down those who tried to flee.
Yet some of the most powerful testimony will probably come from the victims, who dread the trial and welcome it.
Among the first to testify will be Joshua Nowlan, who was shot through his right arm and left leg. Nowlan has had multiple surgeries. A skin graft moved a tattoo from his left shoulder blade onto his injured arm. He has sued the theater's parent company.
"We just hope everything goes well with the trial," Nowlan said. "I'm not ready to talk about it." And yet, he added, "I testify Tuesday."
Information for this article was contributed by Maria L. La Ganga of the Los Angeles Times and by Sadie Gurman of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/27/2015