CENTENNIAL — George Brauchler rose to his feet as if standing for inspection. For months, the district attorney in Arapahoe County had been preparing for the moment when he would announce whether he was seeking the death penalty for the Aurora movie theater shooting. Even before he took office, people asked him what he would do.
“It’s a very ominous and sobering task,” he told them.
His office polled more than 800 people connected to the shooting for the announcement. He personally talked with 60 survivors of the shooting and family members of victims. These are the types of decisions that keep him up at night, he said. He told his wife he consulted with a priest.
When it came time to make the announcement, in a courtroom two Aprils ago, Brauchler stood with his back straight, his knees locked tight. His words marched forth with the conviction of soldiers going off to battle.
“It is my determination and my intention.”
“That in this case, for James Eagan Holmes.”
“Justice is death.”
When Holmes’ trial begins Monday, Brauchler will face a level of scrutiny he has never felt before. Trucks for television networks in Germany, France and China currently sit in the Arapahoe County Justice Center’s parking lot. Reporters from 40 media outlets will watch opening statements.
Brauchler is aware of the burden.
“I take responsibility for this case,” he told The Associated Press this year.
(Normally outgoing with the media, Brauchler declined to comment for this article, citing the impending trial.)
The defining case of Brauchler’s career waited for him on his first day of work as Arapahoe County district attorney. The shooting that killed 12 and wounded 70 others occurred in the middle of his campaign for office.
But, to Brauchler’s supporters, that was cause for relief. They knew the case would be in good hands.
“He is first and foremost an absolutely outstanding trial attorney,” said Jefferson County District Attorney Pete Weir, who was Brauchler’s supervisor in that office in the early 2000s. “There are few people, if any, I know who are as good in the courtroom as George.”
Two things drive Brauchler in the courtroom.
First is what even his critics agree is an exceptional gift with words. Brauchler, 45, speaks with the kind of easy eloquence and humor usually found only in the movies. He is charming, self-deprecating. During the final stage of jury selection for the theater shooting trial, he successfully turned an embarrassing moment — calling a male juror a female — into a chance to win goodwill with a roomful of jurors.
“In my defense,” he played up his gaffe, as jurors burst into laughter, “all I saw was hair!”
Second are his deeply held beliefs about politics and justice. They run through his life like the intertwining strands of a DNA molecule: Career prosecutor. Staunch Republican. Military lawyer. Rumored candidate for governor.
The strands merged most prominently four months into Brauchler’s tenure as district attorney, in a previous death penalty case. When Gov. John Hickenlooper issued an indefinite execution reprieve to killer Nathan Dunlap, whom Brauchler’s predecessors prosecuted, Brauchler held a news conference on the Capitol steps.
“Make no mistake,” Brauchler smoldered, “this is not action. This is inaction. How could you not make a decision?”
His outspoken support for the death penalty and his scathing attacks on Hickenlooper, a Democrat, drew notice of Republican party kingmakers. People began calling on him to run for governor in 2014. He told a reporter, “I have been seriously considering it.”
To Republicans, Brauchler was the kind of smart, fearless conservative who could challenge the amiable Hickenlooper. To critics, it all reignited an old question: With George Brauchler, how much does politics intermingle with justice?
“I think George Brauchler is seeking the death penalty on an obviously mentally ill man to enhance George Brauchler’s political career,” defense attorney David Lane, who has tried cases opposite Brauchler, said of the theater shooting case.
It’s the common line of attack on Brauchler.
Brauchler’s friends, though, bristle at the suggestion that political ambition influences his decisions as a prosecutor.
“I’ve been around different politicians who are much more calculating,” said political strategist Dustin Zvonek, who ran Brauchler’s 2012 campaign for district attorney.
On Twitter, Brauchler can be partisan — targets have included Hickenlooper’s support for a tax increase and Obamacare.
In the courtroom, some of the same showman traits that make him an attractive candidate to party bosses occasionally peek out. When questioning one prospective juror in the theater shooting case, Brauchler made reference to “our No. 1 country with the No. 1 way of doing things.”
Weir, though, said Brauchler is motivated by one thing.
“I think a sense of public service is at his core,” Weir said.
Brauchler’s first passion was the military.
As a kid in suburban Denver, he dreamed of attending a service academy and becoming a battlefield general. Instead of enrolling at the University of Colorado on an ROTC scholarship, Brauchler shifted toward a career in law, following in his mother’s footsteps.
Brauchler’s mother, Reta, went to law school while her kids were in grade school. In a remembrance for his mother that Brauchler wrote for The Colorado Lawyer magazine, he recalled often walking downstairs as a child to find his mother asleep on the floor, surrounded by books and legal pads. After law school, she continued with her job as a civil rights investigator for the federal government.
“She knew that fundamentally there was right and wrong in the world, and she knew in her heart that what she did was for ‘good,’ ” Brauchler wrote.
Raised to be a devout Catholic, Brauchler’s conservative values also took hold early. He served as a Republican Party precinct captain at the earliest age possible, his wife said. He interned for a Republican congressman.
After law school at CU, Brauchler joined the Jefferson County district attorney’s office and quickly made a name for himself as someone capable of handling big cases. After the Columbine High School shooting, Brauchler prosecuted two men who sold weapons to the shooters. As a lawyer in the Army Reserves, Brauchler once prosecuted an American soldier who killed a Taliban commander in an Afghan jail.
In Arapahoe County, he has taken a hands-on approach as district attorney, personally prosecuting cases involving the deaths of police officers. He has visited crime scenes. His wife of 16 years, Marcia, said her husband has thrown shoes away because they were so covered in blood.
He immerses himself in cases. There are times at night, Marcia says, when she’ll walk into a room and find Brauchler asleep on the floor, surrounded by cellphones and laptops.
His off hours are filled with activities for the couple’s four children, movies and home improvement projects. He fixated on a closet project as the theater shooting case drew closer to trial. After 12-hour days at work, he came home and tried to understand Ikea instructions, Marcia said.
She knows this trial will be hard on him. But she’s not worried. This is her husband at his most fulfilled.
“It’s his job. It’s his calling,” she said. “It’s his mission.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold
