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News Tip: Unlikely Colo. Jury Will Give Theater Shooter Death Penalty, Expert Says

Law professor Jim Coleman says state will likely spend a lot of money on an unlikely sentence

The lead prosecutor said Monday that Colorado will seek the death penalty for accused movie theater gunman James Holmes.

James E. Coleman Jr.John S. Bradway Professor of Law, Duke University School of Lawjcoleman@law.duke.eduhttp://law.duke.edu/fac/colemanj/ Coleman co-directs the Law School's Wrongful Convictions Clinic and the Appellate Litigation clinic, and teaches criminal law, legal ethics, negotiation and mediation, capital punishment, and wrongful convictions. In private practice, he represented criminal defendants in capital collateral proceedings. Coleman has been chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (1999-2000) and of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project (2001-2006).  Quote: "Even if the defendant is tried capitally, it is unlikely the jury will sentence him to death, given that it appears virtually certain the defendant is mentally ill and that his illness contributed to his behavior.   "That means the state will spend a lot of money pursuing a sentence it is not likely to get and instead wind up with what the defendant has offered. This is like the case in Georgia involving Brian Nichols. The state spent a fortune trying to get a death sentence in that case and failed."                                     _        _        _        _  Duke experts on a variety of other topics can be found at http://newsoffice.duke.edu/resources-media/faculty-experts.