CENTENNIAL — A verdict from across the country reverberated in the Aurora movie theater shooting trial Monday, as defense attorneys worried that publicity about the death sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber influenced jurors in the theater case.
Jurors in Boston sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death on Friday, a decision announced in newspapers and on television news programs across the country. The fourth week of the Aurora trial opened Monday with defense attorneys urging the judge to ask jurors if they heard about the Boston verdict and if it changed their opinions in the case they have sworn to decide impartially.
“We are concerned because of the parallels, obvious parallels, between that case and this case,” defense attorney Kristen Nelson said.
Jurors ultimately shook their heads no when Judge Carlos Samour Jr. asked them if news from the Boston trial had swayed them — meaning either the verdict had not impacted how they view the Aurora case or they had not heard about the verdict. But the debate shows how defense attorneys are alert to any wind that might blow the case against them.
As in the Boston case, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in Aurora. Defendant James Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
WATCH portions of theater shooting survivor Kelly Bowen’s testimony
Testimony in the case on Monday was bogged down with defense objections.
When a survivor of the shooting, which killed 12 and wounded 70 others, testified about a phone call he made to his mom during the shooting, the defense objected that it was hearsay. When the former owner of a company that teaches motorcycle safety classes tried to testify about a class registration Holmes made a month before the shooting, lawyers sparred over the procedures for introducing evidence.
Defense attorneys asked Samour to dismiss one juror Monday, after the juror said her husband’s family is friends with an investigator who was called to testify. The investigator works for the Arapahoe County district attorney’s office — though the juror, when asked, said she was unsure where he worked. Defense attorney Daniel King said the juror likely couldn’t remain impartial, “given the nature of this relationship.”
Samour decided to keep the juror on the panel for now, after both sides worked out an arrangement where the investigator didn’t testify on Monday. But, if prosecutors try to call the investigator in the future, the defense is likely to raise the issue again. It is not known whether the juror — a woman who said during jury selection that her son struggles with mental illness — is one of the 12 jurors who will decide the case or an alternate.
Samour has told jurors that attorneys are just doing their jobs when they make objections and that jurors shouldn’t hold the delays they cause — or the rulings Samour makes — against the lawyers.
When not paused with objections, Monday’s testimony was a hodgepodge of information. A crime scene investigator spoke about bullet holes in Theater 8 at the Century Aurora 16 complex, the theater next door to where the shooting occurred. The owner of a motorcycle shop testified about heavy black boots that Holmes purchased there. And four survivors of the attack told their stories.
“I was just trying to hold on,” survivor Ryan Lumba recalled about the moment after he was shot through the lung. “And a few minutes after that, I blacked out.”
He woke up in a hospital — several days later.
