NBC news story here

He was charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder, 140 counts of attempted murder and an explosives count. The verdict on his charges was read today (July 16), and the guilty charges mean that he will move directly to sentencing, with a potential for the death penalty.

Holmes is the lone gunman in an attack on an Aurora, CO movie theater during a film screening back in 2012, where he killed 12 people and injured more than 70.

GOOD.

Why were the counts doubled? Guilty of 24 murders when 12 died?

"There were 24 murder counts instead of 12 because prosecutors brought separate charges of first-degree murder with intent and first-degree murder with extreme difference for each of the victims."

why did this take three years tho?

Oh, I see.

Should have googled first, but went to look now. Murder is complicated! I always thought that when different types of murder (1st degree, manslaughter, etc) were included in trials, the jury had to make a single choice.

As for how long it took, it doesn't surprise me. Jury selection alone took 3 months. The more charges, the longer it takes lawyers to prepare. Also the publicity a case had can strongly affect the timing - for example even setting a trial location, never mind all the other details can take months. Things like determining if the accused is sane enough to take trial and so forth can slow things down a lot.

Even in a case where there is so much evidence that there is no doubt of guilt, like this one - well going through all that evidence on the side of the prosecution takes time. Making sure all the evidence is properly analyzed, doing all the paper work to get the people in to testify and so on. Can you imagine the uproar if the prosecution didn't take enough time to get it all right and the lawyer gets him off on a "technicality"?

This verdict took way longer than it should have.