Two weekends ago, James Holmes was sentenced (one of the newscasters in that coverage, by the way – Ana Cabrera – was my babysitter when I was young and we’ve known her family for years!) to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering 12 people and injuring 70 others in an attack during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight in a Colorado movie theater, July 2012. He plead not guilty by reason of insanity (a questionable and atavistic plea in itself, but that’s for a different post), was convicted of all 165 counts against him and was spared the death penalty (pretty much only because the jury could not come to a unanimous decision, which is required to pass a death sentence, and that was only because there was a single holdout against deciding such a fate). People were “shocked” that this lone juror held this view, “disappointed” that she basically blocked justice because of it. (more…)