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Thread: Robert Lewis Dear, Jr. Charged in 2015 CO Triple Slaying

  1. #11
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    A cabin in the woods of North Carolina where Dear lived has no running water and no electricity before moving to Colorado a year before the attacks. A neighbor said that Dear did not openly discuss religion or abortion with him, but a cross made of twigs was seen outside the suspect's old house in North Carolina on Saturday


    Robert Dear, Suspect in Colorado Killings, ‘Preferred to Be Left Alone’

    By Julie Turkewitz, Richard Fausset, Alan Blinder and Benjamin Mueller
    The New York Times

    HARTSEL, Colo. — Robert L. Dear Jr. was a man who lived off the grid.

    On this lonely, snow-covered patch of land in a hamlet ringed by the Rocky Mountains, his home was a white trailer, with a forest-green four-wheeler by the front door and a modest black cross painted on one end.

    As police officers surrounded it on Saturday, looking for clues to what they said had sent its owner on a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood center that left three dead and nine wounded, neighbors said they barely knew him, beyond one man’s memory of his handing out anti-Obama political pamphlets.

    Van Wands, 58, whose wife owns a local saloon, said there were two types of people in the area: the old-timers who put effort into getting to know their neighbors, and the newcomers who wished for solitude. Mr. Dear, he said, fell solidly into the second category.

    “That’d be one that preferred to be left alone,” he said.

    A day after the shooting, a portrait emerged of a man with a sporadic record of brushes with the law, neighbors and relatives. In 1997, Mr. Dear’s wife at the time reported to the police that he had locked her out of her home and pushed her out of a window when she tried to climb back in. In 2002, he was arrested after a neighbor complained that he hid in bushes and tried to peer into her house. An online personal ad believed to be posted by Mr. Dear sought partners for sadomasochistic sex.

    With Colorado Springs residents telling chilling tales of hours spent hiding in stores near the shootout on Friday, the authorities shed no light publicly on whether they believed Mr. Dear, 57, had deliberately targeted Planned Parenthood. But one senior law enforcement official, who would speak only anonymously about an ongoing investigation, said that after Mr. Dear was arrested, he had said “no more baby parts” in a rambling interview with the authorities.

    The official said that Mr. Dear “said a lot of things” during his interview, making it difficult for the authorities to pinpoint a specific motivation.

    In Washington, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement that the shooting was “not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving health care services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people. It was also an assault on the rule of law, and an attack on all Americans’ right to safety and security.”

    Senior Justice Department officials were looking into whether to move forward with a federal case. Along with examining whether Mr. Dear could be charged with a hate crime, officials were exploring whether he may have violated federal laws intended to protect abortion clinics. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a crime to use physical force against patients and clinic employees.

    President Obama on Saturday again called on America to tackle gun violence. “This is not normal,” he said in a statement. “We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them.”

    Mr. Dear, who had surrendered to the police on Friday evening, remained in custody without bond at the El Paso County criminal justice center. Law enforcement records and interviews began to paint a portrait of an itinerant loner who left behind a trail of disputes and occasionally violent acts toward neighbors and women he knew.

    His former wife, Pamela Ross, 54, who was with him for 16 years or so and once called the police to accuse him of domestic violence, recalled that Mr. Dear could be angry at times, sometimes with her. But he was the kind who usually followed a flash of anger with an apology, though he was not much for chitchat.

    He was an independent art dealer with a degree in public administration from a Midwestern college, she said, who struck deals with artists, mostly Southern ones, who painted Charleston, S.C., street scenes, Old South plantation tableaus, magnolias and pictures of the Citadel campus. He tended to buy the rights to paintings, commission 1,000 or so prints, then market and sell the prints and keep the proceeds.

    He was born in Charleston and grew up in Louisville, Ky., but he had strong ties to South Carolina. His father was a graduate of the Citadel, Charleston’s famous public military college. Robert Lewis Dear Sr., the father, died in 2004. He was a Navy veteran who served in World War II and worked 40 years for the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company.

    The younger Mr. Dear was raised as a Baptist, Ms. Ross said in an interview in Goose Creek, S.C., where she now lives. He was religious but not a regular churchgoer, a believer but not one to harp on religion. “He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.

    He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.

    “It never, ever, ever, ever crossed my mind,” she said, that he would be capable of such a thing. “My heart just fell to my stomach.”

    Ms. Ross divorced Mr. Dear in 2000. She has since remarried and has seen him only once or twice in 15 years. Their divorce was amicable, and he moved away shortly thereafter, to the Asheville, N.C., region. After the divorce, Mr. Dear had asked her to stay. He eventually took custody of their son, who was 12 at the time. Mr. Dear raised him in North Carolina. Ms. Ross said she had been confident that he would be a good parent and male role model.

    She acknowledged that she had once called the police about him but declined to talk about it.

    A police incident report shows that in 1997, she told the police that he had locked her out of her home and had “hit her and pushed her out the window” when she tried to climb in. He also shoved her to the ground. The report said she did not want to file charges, but simply “wanted something on record of this incident occurring.”

    After his divorce, Mr. Dear lived in a succession of trailer homes and cabins, where he appeared to stir resentments among neighbors and lash out at people around him, according to police reports. Some former neighbors said they were not surprised by the violence in Colorado Springs.

    In Swannanoa, N.C., where Mr. Dear had lived for a time in a single-wide trailer, a novelist, Leland Davis, said he had repeatedly been followed by Mr. Dear in a late-model Toyota Tacoma. Mr. Davis believed that Mr. Dear had followed him because he suspected that Mr. Davis had complained to the authorities about how Mr. Dear treated a dog. The men never spoke, Mr. Davis said in an interview in his home Saturday night, but Mr. Dear had mounted something of a scare campaign.

    “He followed me all the way into downtown Asheville,” Mr. Davis said. “He followed me three or four times.”

    Mr. Davis said he was unsurprised to see Mr. Dear, whom he described as “a pretty poorly adjusted guy,” emerge as the suspect in the Colorado shooting.

    “I think I would have thought he was a guy who would go on a rampage,” he said. “We were very wary.”

    In Black Mountain, N.C., Mr. Dear had sometimes lived in a small yellow house reachable only after miles of driving on mountain roads. Two sticks, forming a cross, were attached to a padlocked shed that was filled with bedding, gas canisters and worn boxes of beer. He bought the house without running water.

    Scott Rupp, who sold it to him, worried about whether Mr. Dear would fit in the community, which was populated by “environmental types,” he said.

    “He was like a mountain culture person,” Mr. Rupp said, “and he was really excited to get a place where he could hunt.”

    In 2002, in Walterboro, S.C., Mr. Dear was arrested on charges of breaking the state’s “Peeping Tom” law after a neighbor told the police that he had hidden in the bushes in an attempt to peer into her house. For months, the neighbor, Lynn Roberts, said,

    Mr. Dear was “making unwanted advancements” and “leering” at her on a regular basis, putting her “in fear of her safety,” according to an incident report.
    The charge was later dismissed, but a restraining order was issued.

    He also repeatedly had other run-ins with neighbors. One, Douglas Moore, said Mr. Dear had called him to threaten “bodily harm” because Mr. Dear believed Mr. Moore had pushed over his motorcycle, according to a police report in 2004. Two years earlier, after Mr. Moore called the police to report his dog’s being shot with a pellet gun, Mr. Dear told investigators, “Douglas was lucky that it was only a pellet that hit the dog and not a bigger round.”

    Mr. Dear himself called the police several times to complain of people making a nuisance or breaking a water pipe from his well to his home. In 2007, he accused tenants who were renting his home of stealing a pickup truck, refrigerator and microwave.

    He seemed to have a separate life online. An online personals ad seeking women in North Carolina interested in bondage and sadomasochistic sex showed a picture that appeared to be Mr. Dear and used an online pseudonym associated with him. The same user also appeared to have turned to online message boards to seek companions in the Asheville area with whom he could smoke marijuana.

    On Cannabis.com, the writer said in December 2005: “AIDS, hurricanes, we are in the end times. Accept the LORD JESUS while you can.”

    Most of Dear’s posts on the message board were made in the Spirituality forum. He also posted requests for dates on the South Carolina forum.

    His first post on the site was looking for a woman. On August 8, 2005, he posted a thread titles “sc women wanted,” and wrote in the body of the post, “tall aries male loves to party.” A few days later, Dear posted, “lets party, white male 44, aries.”

    On September 8, 2005, he posted about Hurricane Katrina, writing, “well now they have ordered forced evacuations , an no pets allowed , i heard one guy say he wont leave unless they kill him , so what ever happened to freedom.”

    Dear first posted about religion on October 3, 2005, when he replied to a thread titled, “Jesus was a fraud.” He wrote, “u wont like hell , jesus is the only hope. satan has blinded u little demon.”

    On October 7, he wrote, “turn to Jesus or burn in hell. Wake up sinners u cant save yourself u will die an worms shall eat your flesh, now your soul is going somewhere.”

    He also posted several times in the next few weeks different variations of “Every knee shall bow an tongue confess Jesus is lord in this world or the next.”

    Dear wrote that “herb” was created by God, so man’s laws against the drug are against God. He also ranted against women, posting, “god made the woman out of the mans side sorry but womans lib cant change it.”

    On December 5, 2005, he posted, “aids, hurricanes, we are in the end times. accept the LORD JESUS while you can.”

    His last post was on January 8, 2006, when he wrote, “THE LORD GIVETH THE LORD TAKETH AWAY,” and “BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.”

    In his new home in the Rocky Mountains, where he had been registered to vote for only a year, neighbors said they did not know Mr. Dear well. Zigmond Post, who lives about a half-mile from Mr. Dear, said that he had met him only a few times, but that his dogs had once gotten loose on Mr. Dear’s property. When he went to fetch them, Mr. Dear handed him a few pamphlets strongly critical of Mr. Obama. Mr. Post said the pamphlets were strictly political and did not have any anti-abortion messages or racist overtones.

    “He gave us these pamphlets and said, ‘Hey, if you ever want to talk about this stuff, look this over,’ ” Mr. Post said in a telephone interview. “I think we threw them into the campfire that night.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us...lone.html?_r=1
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #12
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    Reading all the tweets from this case and some points:

    1. Three prosecutors will handle this case. The Colorado Springs Gazette reporter said he never has heard of using three prosecutors. Sounds like they will seriously seek the DP in this case.
    2. The DA has 63 days to inform the court whether he will seek the DP or not. I believe 100% that the DP will be part of this case.
    3. The DA is working with the US Attorney General for possible federal charges.
    4. Members of James Holmes defense members were seen.
    5. Trail could be possible within six months but often has delays especially capital murder cases.

    NEXT COURT DATE: December 9th.
    Last edited by Big Jon; 11-30-2015 at 05:49 PM.

  3. #13
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting suspect makes first court appearance


    By Joanna Walters and Sabrina Siddiqui
    The Guardian

    The man accused of a deadly shooting spree inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado made his first court appearance on Monday afternoon, facing charges of first-degree murder for the deaths of three people.

    Robert Lewis Dear, 57, spoke only to say he understood the potential charge against him, acknowledging the accusation that he killed three people and injured nine others in the attack in Colorado Springs last Friday.

    He is being held without bond at the El Paso County criminal justice center in Colorado Springs, and appeared by video link from the jail.

    Relatives of some of the victims sat in the courtroom and watched Dear appear on a large television screen, his hands cuffed in front of him and, bare-armed, wearing a white padded vest.

    An expression like a faint smirk crossed the suspect’s face from time to time during the short hearing, as attorneys and the judge discussed legal formalities.

    They agreed Dear would appear in court again on 9 December to hear the full roster of charges against him.

    Through most of the proceedings Dear stood calmly, his short, unkempt hair and beard hardly changed from police mugshots published after his surrender on Friday.

    No official motive for the attack was outlined, despite previous reports that he had said “no more body parts” to police during his arrest. The shooting has intensified a raging political debate about abortion rights, drawing in opposing activists and presidential candidates.

    The court appearance was presided over by Gilbert Martinez, chief judge for Colorado’s fourth judicial district. He asked the defendant over the video link if he had any questions.

    “No questions,” Dear replied in a level voice. At the end of the hearing, Dear appeared to mouth a silent “thank you”.

    Martinez said Dear faces a minimum sentence of life in prison and a maximum sentence of the death penalty. During the hearing, Dear stood next to a public defender, Daniel King, who previously represented James Holmes, the gunman found guilty of killing 12 people in a movie theatre in Aurora, near Denver, in 2012.

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...urt-appearance
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #14
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Colorado shooting: Suspect Robert Dear appears before judge by video link and is told he could face death penalty

    Bearded and bedraggled and wearing a bullet-proof bib, the man accused of attacking a Colorado abortion clinic and killing three people, has appeared before a judge where he was told he could face the death penalty.

    Robert Dear, 57, made his first appearance - via video link from jail - since Friday’s six-hour assault on Friday, during which he also injured another half-dozen people.

    He and his lawyer were told he was being held on suspicion of first degree murder. Formal charges are expected to be brought next week.

    Asked by the judge if he had any questions, he said: “No questions”.

    Planned Parenthood said reports that Mr Dear told investigators "no more baby parts" after his arrest showed he was acting on an anti-abortion agenda.

    However, during his brief appearance, no mention was made of the motivation behind the attack.

    Last Friday’s rampage is believed to have been the first deadly attack on a US abortion provider in six years. The Colorado Springs centre has been targeted for protests by anti-abortion activists.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6755166.html

  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Death penalty expert representing Planned Parenthood shooting suspect

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Robert Lewis Dear Jr. appeared next to one of Colorado’s top public defenders specializing in death penalty cases on Monday during his first court appearance after a shooting rampage at the
    Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic.

    Dear, 57, repeatedly shut his eyes and drifted to one side or the other as if he struggled to stay awake during his video appearance before Judge Gilbert Martinez.

    He was advised of possible first-degree murder charges in connection with Friday’s attack, which left three people dead and nine wounded. Martinez said the charge carries possible sentences of life in prison or death.

    Dear stood still and showed no emotion when the possible sentence was read.

    By his side was Dan King, chief trial deputy for the state public defender’s office. He recently represented James Holmes, who fatally shot 12 people and wounded dozens of others in 2012 at an Aurora movie theater.

    A jury decided against the death penalty in favor of life in prison for Holmes.

    Also representing Dear was Sheilagh McAteer, a Colorado Springs-based public defender who defended Jereme Lamberth — the man who fatally shot Colorado Springs police Officer Jared Jensen in 2008.

    Dear spoke in a deep, gravelly voice three times while appearing in a so-called turtle suit — a vest designed to ensure he doesn’t harm himself.

    Twice Dear replied “yes” when asked if he could hear the judge. He also said he had no questions near the end of the hearing.

    Charges are expected to be filed during Dear’s next hearing on Dec. 9.

    Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May said he would personally help prosecute the case, along with Jeff Lindsey and Donna Billek, two of the office’s top prosecutors.

    May also said he has spoken to U.S. Attorney John Walsh about the case, and that Walsh cut his vacation short to consult with prosecutors.

    However, May declined to say whether federal charges would be filed.

    Several court documents, including Dear’s arrest warrant and a search warrant filed by Colorado Springs police, have been sealed.

    Moments before the hearing, a procession lined up outside the El Paso County jail where Dear was being held — making way for slain University of Colorado at Colorado Springs police Officer Garrett Swasey.

    His body was taken in a flag-draped coffin from the nearby El Paso County Coroner’s Office to a funeral home, escorted by more than a dozen police cruisers.

    http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/m...43ec5a355.html

  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Before Colorado shooting, a long history of alleged violence against women

    By William Wan
    The Washington Post

    Before his arrest for last week’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Robert Lewis Dear had on several occasions been accused of erupting in bursts of violence, particularly toward women.

    At least two of his three ex-wives have accused him of physical abuse, according to court records. And in 1992, Dear was arrested and accused of sexual violence and rape.

    Since Friday’s shooting at the clinic, which killed three and wounded nine, neighbors and others who crossed paths with Dear have described him as an angry man who often exhibited strange and unsettling behavior. The latest details of alleged rape and domestic abuse were first reported by the Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier.

    The alleged rape involved a woman who worked at a mall. According to police records in North Charleston, S.C., the woman told police that Dear had repeatedly asked her out. Even after she refused — and informed him that she was married — Dear kept calling her two to three times a day.

    Then, on Nov. 29, 1992, Dear suddenly appeared at her front door as she opened it to take out the trash, according to police records. Holding a knife to her neck, he hit her and began raping her, first on the couch then on the floor.

    After Dear left, the woman immediately called a friend, sent word to the ship on which her husband was stationed, and was taken to a Navy hospital.

    According to police records, Dear acknowledged to investigators that he had sex with the woman, but he said it was consensual.

    State documents do not indicate what happened in the case. There is no record of a conviction, which means the case was probably dismissed. North Charleston police said that they could not say how the case had been resolved and referred questions to the local solicitors office, where officials did not return calls.

    Dear has also been accused of violence by his former wives. Married and divorced three times, Dear has at least four sons from those marriages. His second wife, Barbara Micheau, declined to discuss her ex-husband.

    But in a 1993 divorce affidavit cited by the Post and Courier and the New York Times, Micheau described Dear as a man who was extremely religious and used religion at times to justify abusive behavior. At the same time, he was deeply sinful, she said, describing him as a serial philanderer and gambler.

    “He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Micheau said in the affidavit. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”

    In the divorce papers, Micheau said Dear threw her around a room by her hair on one occasion and beat her head against the ground. In the affidavit, she said Dear “erupts into fury in a matter of seconds,” and that she “lived in fear and dread of his emotional and physical abuse,” according to the Post and Courier.

    Dear’s third wife, Pamela Ross, also reported domestic abuse to police in 1997, according to reports filed with the sheriff’s office in Colleton County, S.C., where Dear lived at the time. Ross declined to file charges against Dear but told police that she reported the incident because she “wanted something on record.”

    Outside her home near Charleston, Ross, who has since remarried, declined to comment. Through tears, she said that she has been stricken since Friday’s shooting, and she expressed frustration with reporters who have been calling her nonstop trying to learn more about Dear.

    Ross’s current husband said the couple has had only sporadic contact with Dear since the divorce.

    In May 2002, another woman who lived next door to Dear in Walterboro, S.C., complained to police that Dear had been “making unwanted advancements” toward her since she and her husband had moved in a year earlier.

    The woman told police that she had seen Dear hiding in the bushes next to her house at 5:30 a.m. She “heard her guard dog barking and saw Mr. Dear looking into her house.”

    Neighbors and others close to Dear, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by Dear or his family, say Dear was born in Charleston and grew up in Kentucky. But recently, he had split his time between North and South Carolina, they said, working as an independent art dealer, selling art prints from gallery to gallery in Charleston and elsewhere.

    More than a dozen people who lived next door to the string of trailers and ramshackle houses Dear called home over the past two decades described him as silent and sullen, a recluse notable for odd behavior: cruelty to his own dogs, bizarre mutterings about government conspiracies, skinny-dipping and angry rebuffs when they tried to say hello.

    Dear’s peculiar behavior and pursuit of women appeared to extend online. An e-mail address confirmed as Dear’s by two people close to him was linked to a flurry of message-board postings on Cannabis.com. The posts are mainly political and religious rants, with several focused on death, hell and the end of the world.

    One post read: “WAKE UP SINNERS U CANT SAVE YOURSELF U WILL DIE AN WORMS SHALL EAT YOUR FLESH.” Another said: “aids , hurricanes, we are in the end times.”

    One person who had discussed politics with Dear said he had often praised those who attacked abortion clinics as “heroes.” On Saturday, a law enforcement official said Dear used the phrase “no more baby parts’’ after he was arrested to explain his decision to attack Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest abortion providers.

    Online, Dear was often equally interested in trying to attract women: “savannah sexy women wanted,” one post said. “i love to party , tall , aries , male.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...omepage%2Fcard
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #17
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Another Colorado death penalty trial?

    Colorado should avoid going through another death penalty trial

    It is possible that 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May will elect to pursue the death penalty against accused Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear Jr.

    The case is, as Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., said recently, "ripe for a death penalty prosecution."

    Capital punishment can be considered under Colorado law if, among other things, multiple people were killed, if a law enforcement officer is killed or if the killing was a hate crime.

    All three factors were in play in Colorado Springs.

    Charges are expected to be filed against Dear on Wednesday, with the decision on the death penalty still months away.

    But if May does decide to pursue a death penalty, we hope he'd be open to accepting a plea deal from the defense — if an offer is then forthcoming — for a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.

    Such a deal would spare everyone a protracted trial with an uncertain outcome, not to mention the huge expense.

    Earlier this year, two cases that should have been ideal in many ways for the death penalty were rejected by jurors — even though potential jurors are screened to ensure they can apply the ultimate penalty if the facts call for it.

    James Holmes, who murdered 12 people and injured 70 in an Aurora theater, was instead sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole.

    Dexter Lewis, who killed five people in Fero's Bar in Denver, was also given life in prison without possibility for parole.

    Even in conservative El Paso County, a jury trial will be faced with the same uncertain outcome.

    Is it reasonable for the state to spend millions of dollars on defending and prosecuting a capital punishment case that has a strong chance of ending without a death sentence?

    A recent disclosure by the State Public Defender's office said it has spent $6.3 million on 10 death penalty cases since 2002.

    In the Holmes case alone, prosecutors say they spent up to $1.5 million in state and federal funds and the bills are still being tabulated.

    That doesn't include how much the cases have cost other agencies, such as sheriff's departments and prosecutors.

    Both the Holmes and Lewis cases spanned three years from crime to verdict and accomplished little in terms of the eventual punishment that might not have been achieved earlier with a plea bargain.

    Why put victims, families and jurors through the emotional hell of a prolonged trial if it's not necessary?

    That's especially true because it's unlikely Dear would ever actually be executed even if he were found guilty and got the death penalty. He is 57.

    If he were convicted at, say, 59 or 60, his attorneys could probably delay an execution for a couple of decades at least.

    By which time most people might wonder: What was the point?

    http://www.denverpost.com/editorials...ld.einnews.com

  8. #18
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    I commented on that article. The state of Colorado's failure to execute Nathan Dunlap in addition to James Holmes & Dexter Lewis getting LWOP sentences for mass murderers could be viewed as a signal to would be mass murderers to kill as many people as they like since they most likely wouldn't get the death penalty. A message needs to be sent by sentencing Dear to death in this state and Governor Hickenloper growing a pair by signing Dunlap's death warrant and having it carried out.

  9. #19
    Junior Member Stranger mykers's Avatar
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    Agreed! I couldn't have said it better.
    Are some crimes so vile and so heinous that execution is the only appropriate penalty to be imposed on the perpetrator? That should be the central issue in the debate about the death penalty. [FONT=Arial]Unfortunately, the opponents of capital punishment do not address this question, but instead cast doubts on its application. But attacks on the process are not arguments that address the merits of whether the death penalty is a legitimate form of punishment.

    Firing Squad anyone? ︻デ┳═ー

  10. #20
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    'I am a warrior for the babies': Outburst reported during Planned Parenthood shooter's court appearance

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Black Friday shooting suspect Robert Dear was in court Wednesday to hear the formal charges filed against him.

    Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom and electronic devices had to be turned off, but several reporters who were in court stepped out of the room and tweeted that Dear confessed in an outburst.

    KCNC reporter Rick Sallinger tweeted that Dear said "I am guilty, there will be no trial. I am a warrior for the babies"

    Dear, 57, is accused of killing three people and injuring nine others at the Planned Parenthood on Centennial Boulevard in Colorado Springs. The shooting happened on November 27.

    Dear faces multiple counts of first degree murder and other charges.

    The District Attorney's office has 63 days to decide whether to pursue the death penalty. That decision has not yet been announced.

    Dear is represented by Public Defender Dan King, who also represented Aurora Theater Shooter James Holmes.

    King has asked that media be banned from the courtroom. The judge is expected to rule on that request today.

    http://www.krdo.com/news/formal-char...spect/36878180
    Last edited by Big Jon; 12-09-2015 at 04:44 PM.

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