Family members react to Holmes' plea offer

DENVER James Holmes is willing to spend the rest of his life in prison if it means there's no chance he'll be executed. Now prosecutors have to decide whether that's a deal they're willing to make with the former graduate student accused in last summer's Colorado movie theater massacre.

Holmes' attorneys disclosed in a court filing Wednesday that their client has offered to plead guilty to killing 12 people at a midnight movie, but only if there's no chance he'll be executed.

As prosecutors try to decide, they'll likely be listening to the families of the victims and survivors.

Several of them were divided on Wednesday on whether prosecutors should accept the plea bargain.

Melisa Cowden, whose ex-husband was killed, said she was resolutely opposed to a plea deal.

"He didn't give 12 people the chance to plea bargain and say, 'Let's see if you're going to shoot me or not,'" said Cowden, whose two teenage daughters were with their father when he was killed.

Prosecutors have said Holmes planned the assault for months, casing the theater complex, amassing a small arsenal and rigging potentially deadly booby-traps in his apartment. Then on July 20, he donned a police-style helmet and body armor, tossed a gas canister into the theater crowd and opened fire, prosecutors said.

In addition to the 12 killed, 70 were injured, some seriously.

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Holmes is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the July gunfire assault on a movie theater the Denver suburb of Aurora. A judge entered a not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf after his attorneys said they had too many questions about the constitutionality of Colorado laws to advise Holmes how to plead.

George Brauchler, the Arapahoe County D.A., is scheduled to announce Monday whether he will seek the death penalty for Holmes. Brauchler hasn't publicly revealed his plans, and his spokeswoman declined comment on Wednesday.

Pierce O'Farrill, who was shot three times, said he would welcome an agreement that would imprison Holmes for life. The years of court struggles ahead would likely be an emotional ordeal for victims, he said.

"I don't see his death bringing me peace," O'Farrill said. "To me, my prayer for him was that he would spend the rest of his life in prison and hopefully, in all those years he has left, he could find God and ask for forgiveness himself."

A plea bargain would bring finality to the case fairly early so victims and their families can avoid the prolonged trauma of not knowing what will happen, said Dan Recht, a past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

"The defense, by making this public pleading, is reaching out to the victims' families," he said.

Some family members told The Denver Post they had already spoken with prosecutors, or expected to on Wednesday.

"It's hard for us to get excited because it's just an offer," said Lonnie Phillips, stepfather of 24-yeare-old aspiring sports broadcaster Jessica Ghawi, who died in the shooting. "Until something is accepted, it's just nothing."

"My vote was for this person to be put to death. This is the guy who did it," said Tom Sullivan, whose 27-year-old son, Alex, died in the July 20 mass shooting.

Tom Sullivan, whose son, Alex, 27, died in the shooting, told the Post he was prepared for a lengthy trial. "My vote was for this person to be put to death," he said.

But he also said that if his family were relieved of the emotional toll of a months-long trial by a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, he would approve.

In an interview with The Associated Press, former prosecutor Bob Gallagher remembered a 1993 murder case in which defense attorneys came to him with tears in their eyes asking for a plea deal that would spare their client the death penalty. He turned them down.

"That is no doubt one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make," said Gallagher, the Arapahoe County district attorney at the time four people were killed in a Denver-area Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria.

Gallagher said that he believed the death penalty should be an option for the jury. "Am I, the elected DA, qualified to talk about and make up my mind on a moral decision? Should this person be put to death or not?"

Nathan Dunlap was convicted of the murders in 1996 and sentenced to death 16 years ago. He is only now nearing the end of his appeals. No execution date has been set.