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Jurors Weigh Reasons for Death for Guilty Theater Shooter

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Jurors decided unanimously Thursday that the Colorado theater attack was cruel enough to justify the death penalty for James Holmes. His defense then urged them to spare his life, despite the horrors he caused.

Jurors determined that capital punishment is justified because Holmes murdered a large number of victims; caused a grave risk of death to others; committed murder in a heinous, cruel or depraved manner; and laid in wait or ambush.

One factor they said prosecutors did not prove was that Holmes intentionally killed a child, but the other "aggravating factors" ensure that the death penalty remains an option during his sentencing.

Holmes was told to stand for these findings, and remained calm with his hands in his pockets, looking directly at Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. as he read them.

Prosecutors said Holmes wanted to murder as many as he could in the audience of more than 400 people, and killed 12 only because his assault rifle jammed. The defense effectively conceded this, hoping to focus jurors' attention instead on the "mitigating factors" that make it wrong to execute him.

"Mitigation is a reason to choose life," attorney Rebekka Higgs said before the defense showed jurors photos of "Jimmy" starting in the second grade, and took testimony from his teachers. "You are now responsible for that life, and you ought to know all you can about that life."

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In this Monday, April 27, 2015 sketch by courtroom artist Jeff Kandyba, Aurora theater shooting defe …

Higgs said the defense accepts their verdict that Holmes was legally sane when he committed the attack, but urged jurors to weigh his illness differently as they consider his sentence. The fact remains that if he were not mentally ill, the crime never would have happened, she said.

"The only reasonable explanation here is a psychotic break, a broken mind," she said. "We are not going to ask you to forgive Mr. Holmes. We are going to ask for your compassion, your understanding, your mercy ... because all that aggravation was born of disease, and we don't kill people for being sick."

District Attorney George Brauchler urged jurors to hold fast to the facts they already agreed on.

"This phase will be all about the person who committed those horrific, those aggravated, mass murders," he said. "We'll talk more about mental illness, and in the end you'll be asked whether or not that outweighs the horror of the aggravators you have just found. And it will not."

Defense attorneys then called 10 witnesses Thursday — including Holmes' childhood piano teacher, a high school history teacher, a middle school friend and a cross country coach — who all remembered Holmes as never mean or rude but often distant, shy, quiet and standoffish.

Prosecutor presents argument in phase 1 of sentenc …Play video

"He was just kind of a shadow figure," the coach, Lori Godwin, said.

The jurors' individual values now become paramount.

The judge said each juror "may consider mercy," based on the evidence. This doesn't mean passion or bias or a merely emotional response, but neither should their calculations be "mechanical or mathematical," he said.

"A mitigating factor is not a justification or an excuse for the crime. It's a matter of fairness or mercy, which can be invoked to reduce the degree of a defendant's moral culpability," the judge instructed.

If jurors finally decide that Holmes' mental problems outweigh the lifelong suffering he caused, the trial will end there, with a life sentence. If not, a final phase will be held, during which victims and their relatives would describe their pain and heartache.

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Top (L to R): Matt McQuinn, Alex Teves, Micayla Medek, Jesse Childress, Jon Blunk, Jessica Ghawi. Bo …

With witnesses being called to testify by both sides, the sentencing phase that began on Wednesday could last up to a month.

The bullets Holmes sprayed killed 12 people and wounded 58. Twelve others were injured in the chaos.

Prosecutor Rich Orman argued that Holmes deliberately killed his victims, including 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan who "had four gunshot wounds to her little body." But jurors didn't find the intent that would qualify the child's death as another "aggravating factor."

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Associated Press writer Dan Elliott in Denver contributed to this report.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State group targets across the border in Syria on Friday, government officials said, a day after IS militants fired at a Turkish military outpost, killing a soldier.

The bombing is a strong tactical shift for Turkey which had long been reluctant to join the U.S.-led coalition against the extremist group.

A government official said three F-16 jets took off from Diyarbakir airbase in southeast Turkey early Friday and used smart bombs to hit three IS targets. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of government rules requiring authorization for comment, said the targets were two command centers and a gathering point of IS supporters.

Turkish media said the targets were the Syrian village of Havar, near the border, but officials would not confirm the location.

The private Dogan news agency said as many as 35 IS militants were killed in the airstrike that targeted the gathering point. The agency did not cite a source for the report and there was no official confirmation.

A government statement said the decision for the operation was taken at a security meeting on Thursday, held after five IS militants fired from Syrian territory at the outpost and prompting Turkish retaliation that killed at least one IS militant.

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A youth uses binoculars to look at Turkish army tanks holding positions, near the border with Syria, …

The official said the Turkish planes did not violate Syrian airspace.

The bombing followed a decision by Turkey this week to allow the U.S. military to use the key Incirlik air base near the Syrian border to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State, senior U.S. officials said.

Turkey has yet to publicly confirm the agreement, which U.S. officials discussed on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment publicly. Citing operational security, the White House declined to confirm the agreement, but noted that President Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to "deepen our cooperation" against IS in their phone call Wednesday.

The agreement follows months of U.S. appeals to Turkey and delicate negotiations over the use of Incirlik and other bases by the U.S.-led coalition — a sensitive topic in Turkey.

American officials said access to the base in southern Turkey would allow the U.S. to move more swiftly and nimbly to attack IS targets.

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Turkish army tanks hold positions near the border with Syria, in the outskirts of the village of Elb …

On Friday, Turkish police launched a major operation against terror groups including IS, carrying out simultaneous raids in Istanbul and 12 provinces and detaining more than 250 people, a government statement said. The state-run Anadolu Agency said as many as 5,000 police officers were involved in the operation which was also targeting the PKK Kurdish rebel group and the outlawed far-left group, DHKP-C.

The agency said 98 people were detained in Istanbul — 36 of them foreign nationals. It did not given details on their home countries.

One DHKP-C suspect, a woman, was killed in a gunfight with police in Istanbul, Anadolu reported.

Turkey's moves came as the country finds itself drawn further into the conflict by a series of deadly attacks and signs of increased IS activity inside the country.

Earlier in the week, a suicide bombing blamed on IS militants killed 32 people in a town near the Syrian border.

Turkish officials have raised concerns that the bombing was part of a campaign of retaliation for Turkey's recent crackdown on IS operations in the country. In the last six months, Turkish officials say, more than 500 people suspected of working with IS have been detained.

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Butler reported from Istanbul.

Turkish jets pound IS targets in Syria

In a strong tactical shift, Turkey sends fighter jets across the border to hit Islamic State positions.
U.S. given access to key air base

Republican presidential candidate and US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) asked about a provision of the agreement that seems to obligate the US and its negotiating partners to help protect Iranian nuclear sites against potential outside attack.

According to Annex III, the agreement's section on "civil nuclear cooperation," the signatories commit to "co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.

This provision of the deal doesn't mention any countries by name. But Rubio wondered if this was included in the deal because of Iranian concerns related to a specific US ally.

"If Israel decides it doesn't like this deal and it wants to sabotage an Iranian nuke program or facility, does this deal that we have just signed d obligate us to help Iran defend itself against Israeli sabotage or for that matter the sabotage of any other country in the world?" Rubio asked.

Moniz replied that "all of our options and those of our allies and friends would remain in place" after the deal goes into effect.

Kerry then jumped in to explain the provision's specific purpose: "To be able to have longer-term guarantees as we enter a world in which cyberwarfare is increasingly a concern for everybody that if you are going to have a nuclear capacity, you clearly want to be able to make sure that those are adequately protected."

Of course, one of the most effective acts of geopolitical cyberwar in modern history was launched by Israel at the Iranian nuclear program. In 2010 the computer bug Stuxnet, which is believed to have been a US-Israeli creation, caused Iranian centrifuges to malfunction and slowed down the growth of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity. Stuxnet sewed confusion inside the Iranian nuclear program and arguably bought the US and its partners the critical time and political maneuverability needed to pressure Iran into a negotiated solution to the nuclear issue.

Israel is also believed to have some of the most advanced cyberwarfare capabilities of any country on earth, to the point where the National Security Agency reportedly considered Israel to be a potential electronic warfare proliferator.

"If Israel conducts a cyber attack against the Iranian nuclear program are we obligated to help them defend themselves against an Israel cyber attack?" Rubio asked Kerry.

CHICAGO (AP) — A woman whose 13-month-old son was struck and killed as he sat in his stroller at a bus stop during a high-speed police chase this month in Chicago is suing the city, saying officers ignored orders by their superiors to stop the pursuit.

"My son was innocent and he should not have died," Shatrell McComb said during a Thursday morning news conference about the lawsuit in which several unidentified Chicago police officers are defendants, as is the city of Chicago. The lawsuit also names Antoine Watkins, the man officers were chasing and who is charged with first-degree murder in young Dillan Harris' death.

McComb's attorney, Antonio Romanucci, said Dillan's death was "the direct result of a chase that should not have happened," saying that he had "direct evidence" that the officers were told to stop sometime during the 3 1/2 mile, 20-minute chase on the South Side, not far from the University of Chicago campus. He declined to say what that evidence was.

Romanucci has requested, but not received, audio recordings of communications between the officers and their superiors or dashcam footage, and also said he has filed legal documents demanding that the city preserve the recording and footage. The Associated Press has also made a formal request for the audio recording and the dashcam footage.

A police spokesman declined comment because litigation is pending.

Authorities have said police were pursuing Watkins in the early afternoon of July 11 after 22-year-old Marvin Carr, a rapper who also went by Capo, was shot and killed. An off-duty Chicago Aviation Department officer heard gunfire and notified police that a man, later identified as Watkins, climbed into a red Toyota.

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Antonio Romanucci, attorney for Shatrell McComb, speaks at a news conference Thursday, July 23, 2015 …

Several minutes later, prosecutors say, Watkins lost control of the vehicle, which jumped a sidewalk, then struck and dragged the stroller at a bus stop, where McComb and Dillan were waiting for a bus to go to the beach.

Romanucci said that one of the factors that should have prompted the officers to stop the chase was that they had a detailed description of both the vehicle and the license plate number — information that allows police to "apprehend the suspect at a later time."

He also said that officers should have slowed down because they were in a crowded residential neighborhood on a busy Saturday afternoon.

"At a certain point you actually have to let them go ... because somebody will die," he said.

Romanucci wondered whether the officers would have stopped pursuing the vehicle as he said they were ordered to do had they been in one of Chicago's affluent neighborhoods and not on the predominantly black South Side.

"I'm asking the Chicago Police Department would they have continued this same chase if the incident had occurred" in those neighborhoods, he asked. "The trust has to be the same in the neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago and the North Side and we don't see that being applied equally here."

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This story has been corrected to show the first name of the child's mother is spelled Shatrell, not Shatrelle.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Bomb blasts blamed on Boko Haram killed 29 people in Nigeria and 24 in Cameroon, officials said Thursday after Nigeria's new president warned that the U.S. refusal to sell his country strategic weapons is "aiding and abetting" the Islamic extremist group.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency called Thursday for urgent blood donations to treat 105 wounded people, according to spokesman Sani Datti.

Follow Nigeria Newsdesk ✔@NigeriaNewsdesk NEMA has confirmed that no fewer than 29 persons were killed in Wednesday’s attacks at two motor parks in Gombe. 5:03 AM - 23 Jul 2015 2929 Retweets 11 favorite

In neighboring Cameroon, two suicide bombers Wednesday killed at least 22 people at a marketplace near the border, officials said. The toll is likely to rise among the 50 injured, they said.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari returned home Thursday to the capital, Abuja, from a four-day visit to the United States where he was warmly received by President Barack Obama but failed to get all he wanted.

Buhari told policy makers Wednesday at the U.S. Institute for Peace that Nigeria's armed forces are "largely impotent" because they do not possess the appropriate weapons to fight the Boko Haram Islamic militants.

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He urged the Obama and Congress to be more flexible about the Leahy Law that prohibits weapon sales to countries whose military are accused of gross human rights violations.

Amnesty International charges Nigeria's military is responsible for the deaths of 8,000 detainees — twice as many as Boko Haram's victims in the first four years of its 6-year-old insurgency.

"The application of the Leahy Law ... has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorist group in the prosecution of its extremist ideology and hate, the indiscriminate killings and maiming of civilians," Buhari said.

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