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Thread: Colorado Capital Punishment News

  1. #21
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Colorado's pro-death penalty voters could make Hickenlooper pay

    By Joey Bunch and Jesse Paul
    The Denver Post

    The cold-blooded murders of three teenagers and a manager late one night in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora two decades ago have taken center stage in the political theater of this year's race for governor.

    Gov. John Hickenlooper has weathered political blows from the right since May 2013, when he granted the killer, Nathan Dunlap, a reprieve on his death sentence.

    Hickenlooper's actions then reignited the hot topic over the weekend after Todd Shepherd of The Complete Colorado presented audio of Hickenlooper suggesting to a CNN film crew, in an interview for a segment of a documentary series set to air the evening of Sept. 7, that he could grant Dunlap clemency if he were to lose his re-election bid in November.

    Besides reintroducing a wedge issue — capital punishment — that has a perception of marshaling Republican voters, the incumbent Democrat gave fresh life to Republicans' campaign narrative that Hickenloooper doesn't make forceful decisions.

    Republican nominee Bob Beauprez has repeatedly vowed on the campaign trail to execute Dunlap — an applause line for GOP voters.

    "I believe we need this option on the table for the most heinous crimes where a jury believes it is necessary," Beauprez told The Denver Post last week.

    Polling last April indicated Colorado voters support the death penalty 2-to-1.

    "This is a big issue," Owen Loftus, spokesman for the Colorado Republican Committee, said of the death penalty. "He's making it a bigger issue. The question of whether Gov. Hickenlooper is going to enforce justice or not — that gives people pause."

    Rick Palacio, chairman of the state Democratic Party, counters: "I don't think it's an issue that's on the top of anybody's mind. People in Colorado are concerned about the economy, about jobs, about their well-being going forward.

    "John has done a tremendous job of not only leading the state out of the recession, but putting Colorado at the top of the list nationally for job creation. That's an issue people will vote on."

    Shifting position

    Hickenlooper's spokesman, Eddie Stern, also points to Hickenlooper's performance on the economy, saying the governor's choices on business issues reflect the way he's evolved on the Dunlap issue.

    "Before he makes important decisions, he gives them intense due diligence, and his process on this issue is no exception," Stern said.

    When he ran for governor four years ago, Hickenlooper was vocal about being pro-capital punishment. His decision-making around the issue in 2013 has left some in his own party, and nearly everyone who opposes him, questioning his rationale.

    The governor explained in his Dunlap decision that he believed Colorado's capital punishment system was "imperfect and inherently inequitable."

    The arguments began anew last weekend when news surfaced that Hickenlooper raised the possibility of clemency — which no Colorado governor has ever granted in a death penalty case.

    The governor reiterated his evolution on the issue this month when he told a television news reporter he opposes the death penalty.

    The governor's position is likely to get more emotionally charged in Colorado the closer James Holmes is to being tried on charges he murdered 12 people inside an Aurora movie theater in 2012.

    Holmes, who faces the death penalty, was originally set to stand trial in October, weeks before the Nov. 4 election. However, the case is now set for trial in December.

    "This was made political by John Hickenlooper," said George Brauchler, the Republican district attorney whose office is trying Holmes and who supports capital punishment.

    "Remember what he did. He said to the state of Colorado: I'm not going to act on the order from a jury, from a court. I'm going to let another governor do that."

    Paul Teske, dean of the school of public affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, questioned whether Hickenlooper would lose any voters he might have had otherwise.

    "It could have a small influence, but the voters who are likely to be motivated by this issue probably weren't going to vote for Hickenlooper anyway," he said. But it could fit into a larger narrative.

    "I think Republicans will pair this with the gun issue to say that Hickenlooper is soft on public safety."

    Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli said Hickenlooper can only blame himself for repeatedly reviving an issue that repeatedly hurts him.

    The issue was part of Hickenlooper's tipping point in 2013, Ciruli said, when he granted Dunlap the reprieve, helping drive down his approval ratings from results above and just below 60 percent to the low 40s.

    "It was the first issue that clearly put him on the wrong side of the public," Ciruli said. "He had been a pretty popular governor up to that point in his first term, and it handed a very good issue to the Republicans to hammer him with.

    "But it had kind of gone away. But now (since the CNN interview) he's reopened it."

    By saying he might grant clemency if he loses, Hickenlooper didn't portray himself as a thoughtful leader, the pollster said.

    "Speaking in a hypothetical about what if he loses, what he might do, that comes across as politically manipulative," Ciruli said.

    Slipping support

    The Economist magazine — a favorite read of conservatives — looked at the issue in a piece in April titled, "The Slow Death of the Death Penalty," noting that the 33 people scheduled to die across the country in 2014 is the fewest since 1994, down from 98 in 1999.

    Last year, the 80 people sentenced to death row represented the lowest number in four decades, the magazine noted, stating, "America is falling out of love with the needle."

    The Economist said some of the reasons include those cited before by Hickenlooper: the cost of legal appeals and the lack of evidence to show the penalty deters crime.

    However, the death penalty issue appear to be the ally of Hickenlooper's opponents.

    A Quinnipiac University poll in February indicated Coloradans by a 36 percent to 28 percent margin disapproved of Hickenlooper's handling of the Dunlap case. Meanwhile, 63 percent favored keeping the death penalty while 28 percent supported abolishing it.

    "There has been strong, unwavering support for the death penalty and a sense that the governor's 'not on my watch' position on the issue could hurt him on Election Day," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac's polling operation.

    Thirty-two states, the federal justice system and the U.S. military have the death penalty, but six states in the last six years have abolished capital punishment — Maryland, Connecticut, New Mexico, Illinois, New York and New Jersey.

    All have a lot in common with Colorado, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is a clearinghouse of studies, polls and expertise on both sides of the issue.

    Each state had rarely used capital punishment and had a very small number of people on death row. Colorado has three.

    Colorado has executed only one person in the last 47 years, kidnapper, rapist and murderer Gary Lee Davis, who was put to death in 1997.

    "Red, blue, purple, as far as politics go, people aren't wedded to the death penalty as an issue," Dieter said. "Elections aren't usually won or lost on a candidate's position on the death penalty; rather, many other issues — the economy and jobs, immigration, many things."

    Even those who support the death penalty, as a group, don't agree it's the best option in every case, and they've proved more willing to abolish capital punishment when it's rarely used.

    Dieter, however, said governors and attorneys general, including Eric Holder, have opposed the death penalty but maintained their roles as a representative of the people's will. But governors also have the authority to substitute their judgment and moral convictions on putting another person to death.

    "An election is when the people can choose," Dieter said of a vote on abolishing the death penalty.

    http://www.denverpost.com/election20...e-hickenlooper
    "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. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
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    If Hickenlooper did grant clemency if he lost the election could a future administration remove the governor's right to grant clemency unilaterally or would that require a constitutional amendment? I can understand if he didn't want to authorise an execution while in office, but that shouldn't allow him to overturn prior judicial decisions or tie the hands of a future governor who did want to allow an execution to proceed. So I can understand if a new administration decided to curtail that right, which wouldn't be ideal in my view, since I feel that responsibly used executive clemency can be a a legitimate appeal stage, which unfortunately Hickenlooper is threatening to use for political reasons.

  3. #23
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    Colorado Considered Giving Death Row Inmates More ‘Leisure Time’ Outside Cells

    Colorado’s Department of Corrections considered allowing death row inmates, who are normally confined to their cells, to have four hours per day of “leisure time” in which they can walk around inside and outside the facility.

    Details of this idea were spelled out in an internal email in March, which was recently obtained by the website Complete Colorado.

    “We allow offenders with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole to walk around our medium and close custody facilities, who pose no different risk than those with sentences of the death penalty,” wrote DOC employee Kellie Wasko. “So are we really managing those offenders whose sentence is different — however, the same — effectively and equally? We believe that we can do better!”

    She goes on to describe a new policy that would allow death row prisoners to be allowed out of their cells for four hours, together, without staff members present in a communal area called a “dayhall.” Prisoners can also spend time outdoors or in shower areas, she wrote.

    “[W]e decided that while they are out in the dayhalls, and we are assessing how this will work, we would consider this dayhall a ‘NO STAFF ZONE’ at this time,” Wasko wrote. “So that means that while the offenders are out in their dayhall for their out-of-cell time, staff will not enter into that dayhall for any reason while we assess how this will work for our organization.”

    In an article on its website, Complete Colorado wrote that it’s unknown whether the Department of Corrections actually implemented the new policy, but an unidentified staffer said it’s troubling the idea was even proposed.

    “Just the mere fact they would even put it out department-wide that they were looking to implement something like that had so many staff shaking their heads,” the employee told the site, noting the employee does not work on death row.

    The changes were proposed as Colorado began an overhaul of its policies on solitary confinement, known as administrative segregation. Last year, an inmate who’d spent much of his time in solitary murdered corrections chief Tom Clements and a pizza delivery man while on parole. Clements’ successor, Rick Raemisch, spent 20 hours in solitary as an experiment, leaving with what he described as an “urgency for reform” in an article he wrote about the experience in the New York Times.

    Colorado has three inmates on death row: Richard Ray, convicted of ordering a hit on witnesses set to testify against him on another murder charge; Sir Mario Owens, the man who pulled the trigger in the witness killings; and Nathan Dunlap, who killed four people in a holdup at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

    Although Wasko said in her email that the inmates have no history of behavioral problems in their current confinement to solitary, and should therefore be allowed out of their cells from time to time, District Attorney George Brauchler, whose office prosecuted Dunlap, said a change in policy makes no sense.

    “The reason for Administrative Segregation is pretty obvious,” he told Complete Colorado, “which is, once you’ve told someone, ‘We’re going to leave you in prison until we have the ability to kill you, until we have the ability to take your life,’ they are a much bigger risk than others.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/23/co...outside-cells/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  4. #24
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    Hickenlooper’s attorneys warn TV stations that death penalty attack ad is “false;” RGA disputes claim

    UPDATE: RGA says the ad is accurate.

    UPDATE: Channel 9 is not airing the ad in its current form.


    Gov. John Hickenlooper’s campaign lawyers are asking TV stations to refuse to air a death penalty ad attacking him, saying it falsely states the “governor is threatening to set a mass murderer free.”

    The last frame of the ad states: “Now John Hickenlooper is threatening a ‘full clemency’ for Nathan Dunlap that could set him free.” The ad sites an Aug. 25 story in The Denver Post, but the article never mentions the governor setting Dunlap free. And the governor’s attorneys said that’s not possible.

    “The statement in the ad is flagrantly false, misleading and factually inaccurate,” Hickenlooper’s attorneys said in their cease-and-desist letters.

    The ad is from the Republican Governors Association, which was asked by The Post earlier today about claims the ad was inaccurate.

    “There is not an error in the RGA ad. In fact, if the Hickenlooper folks want to have a conversation about what clemency means* they should ask Governor Hickenlooper,” said Gail Gitcho of the RGA. “This is HIS problem, his lack of and failure of leadership. We are happy to have this conversation.”

    Hickenlooper faces former Congressman Bob Beauprez, a Republican, on Nov. 4.

    Last year, as Dunlap’s execution date neared, Hickenlooper granted the death row inmate an “indefinite reprieve,” which Hickenlooper’s attorneys referred to in their cease-and-desist letters.

    “The temporary reprieve of the governor’s executive order leaves only two possible outcomes with respect to Mr. Dunlap’s sentence, neither of which includes setting him free: (1) full clemency with life in prison and no possiblity for parole or (2) execution,” the attorneys wrote.

    But Gitcho noted that Merriam-Webster defines clemency as “a disposition to be merciful and especially to moderate the severity of punishment due and an act or instance of leniency.” As defined, she said, clemency does not necessarily mean that someone would be set free, but it does not rule that out either. She cited instances where that has happened.

    The ad features a heartbroken Dennis O’Connor, whose 17-year-old daughter Colleen was one of four people killed at an Aurora pizzeria in 1993 by Dunlap, a disgruntled former employee. O’Connor said he waited 20 years for justice to be done, but Hickenlooper “robbed” the victims with his decision to indefinitely delay the execution.

    “He’s a coward who doesn’t deserve to be in office,” O’Connor says.

    The video of Dennis O’Connor was shot by A Better Colorado Future, a political group run by Republican operatives Kelly Maher and Andy George. Last week, the group released 13 painful minutes of O’Connor describing his ordeal.

    O’Connor is divorced and Colleen’s mother Jodie McNally-Damore, has a different opinion of Hickenlooper’s decision. Dunlap, she told CNN, “deserves to stay exactly in the hole that he’s in … let him rot.”

    And Colleen’s cousin, Gillian McNally, told Colorado Public Radio that she “fully supports” Gov. Hickenlooper’s decision. “I actually thought it was very brave,” McNally said.

    McNally issued a statement today:

    Our family has patiently sat by waiting for the election season to conclude so that we could turn on our televisions and not be reminded that my cousin, Colleen O’Conner, was murdered in 1993 in an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese. We have sat by as you have used our loss for your own political gain. We can sit by no longer. Please do not use the tragic loss of our loved one for your political ad.

    Contrary to what your ad claims (From the ad copy: Now John Hickenlooper is threatening a “Full Clemency” for Nathan Dunlap that could set him free), Nathan Dunlap will never be free, and will die in prison one way or another in payment for his crimes — to perpetuate this lie that he will be set free is outrageous.

    To the Republican Governors Association, please take down this untruthful ad.

    To Former Congressman Beauprez, please respect our family and our grief and ask the RGA to take this ad down and do not continue to use our tragedy on the campaign trail.

    To the media, please do not air this ad or write stories about it, allow us our privacy.

    Our family deserves to process our continuing grief in private and we request that you let us do so. The death penalty is a personal issue that requires deep reflection. It is not a political issue that should be used to win votes, but rather an issue that deserves serious contemplation, not 30-second sound bites.

    http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/...ap-rga/114699/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #25
    lawandorder
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    Powerful ad. The swift response shows you how scared they are of its impact.

  6. #26
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Death row inmates transferred to Canon City

    Colorado's death row is back in Canon City. Four years after the state moved it to Sterling, the Colorado Department of Corrections has moved it back to southern Colorado.

    Colorado's three death row members were quietly transferred to the Colorado State Penitentiary recently. The move, confirmed by the DOC Monday, puts the prisoners back in the facility that houses the death chamber.

    The decision to move the prisoners in 2011 came about as the result of a federal lawsuit filed by Chuck E. Cheese murderer Nathan Dunlap. At the time, CSP did not have an outdoor exercise yard.

    CSP's yard has now been modified to allow inmates limited outdoor access.

    Dunlap's execution date was put on hold in 2013 when Gov. John Hickenlooper announced he would grant Dunlap a temporary reprieve.

    Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray, both convicted of murder in a witness-retribution killing, are the two other members of the state's death row.

    The last execution in the state of Colorado was 1997.

    http://www.9news.com/story/news/loca...iary/75066856/

  7. #27
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    As a Colorado resident, I can tell you that people in Colorado are still upset about James Holmes getting 12 LWOP sentences instead of the death penalty and the same goes with Dexter Lewis for his role in the murder of five people at Fero's Bar in Denver. Both juries had 11-1 votes for the death penalty. Plus our stupid governor held up Nathan Dunlap's execution because he could be in the running to lead the Dems on the national stage in the not too distant future. I remember watching the news about the Chuckie E. Cheese murders in Aurora and he hasn't been executed yet which bothers me. Dunlap's tendency to smile in photos is a big middle finger to the state of Colorado and their residents.

    I had no issues with LWOP because that meant you are confined to your cell 23 hours a day but since the CDOC system is changing the rules related with solitary confinement, my concern is that the death row inmates could mix with the general population. That person could either inspire some of the prisoners to carry out killings after their eventual release plus there are some prisoners who would have put in the work to be better citizens and the death row inmate decides to murder that person. The same thought applies to LWOP inmates who have been convicted of murder. The idea of the death penalty ought to be keeping the death row inmates separate (even if they have two guards with them) from the other prisoners. I did check the two other people who were convicted along with Lewis and they are at level III prisons in Colorado which is the lowest security level for anyone convicted of violent crimes. Will they kill other inmates while locked up in prison and being able to be with the general population?

    The governor better keep his hands off the other two death row inmates since they were convicted of murdering a witness to their murder trails and that is a very serious obstruction of justice that should never ever be tolerated. If the sentences of those two were to be commuted, it's open season on potential trail witnesses in the state of Colorado. There is a good reason for the death penalty statue in any state when it comes to harming trail witnesses.

    I would agree that before Colorado starts executing death row inmates again, they need to update their protocol to include the one drug cocktail especially pentobarbital or other drugs in California's new one drug cocktail. I know people want the condemned to feel pain but we need to be better than that person and put him/her down humanely.

  8. #28
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
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    That person could either inspire some of the prisoners to carry out killings after their eventual release
    This is an especially good point, when 2 of Colorado's death row inmates are the arguably the best examples of why the death penalty is needed nationwide. Being as they killed people to cover up a murder.

    After James Holmes didn't get the death penalty (and he should have done), I was quite pleased Dexter Lewis didn't either, as that would have made the entire system look arbitrarily racist if he did.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    The issue of solitary confinement in CO came to a head when the CDOC director was murdered by a former CDOC prisoner who spent time in solitary confinement. The person shot and killed a pizza delivery person just a block from where I lived and the area I live in is a very safe area so I can say it hit close to home.

    I agree about Lewis not getting the death penalty but hey we sentenced Tim McVeigh to death for his role in the OKC bombing. Just the fact that Denver County jurors came within one vote of a death penalty was a huge shock too given how liberal Denver is.

    While I do not disagree with LWOP sentences, I am concerned about the potential high cost of caring for elderly inmates and that could start to rear its ugly head in the 2020s to 2030s. I know it sucks that the legal costs are high for death penalty cases but no expense should be spared when it comes to one's lives. It would be hilarious to see states bring back the death penalty during that time.

  10. #30
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    Hickenlooper won’t seek death penalty repeal this year

    While hinting he’d like to push the issue before he leaves office, Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) said Tuesday he will not call for a change in Colorado’s laws on capital punishment when he delivers his next state of the state address to the legislature.

    “No,” said Hickenlooper when asked whether he’d press the issue in this year’s legislative session, which begins Wednesday. “But we’re getting there.”

    The governor went on to say he might pursue a change in death penalty law “hopefully in the next year or two.”

    During his first term in office, Hickenlooper came under fire when he revealed that he’d had a change of heart about the death penalty and personally could not allow the execution of a death row inmate to go forward.

    He suspended indefinitely the execution of Nathan Dunlap, promising in his reelection campaign to leave it up to the next governor to decide Dunlap’s fate.

    However, the governor also indicated he would sign a repeal of the death penalty if the legislature passed it, saying repeatedly that the state needs to have a “conversation” on the issue.

    The death penalty also became a front-burner issue in 2015 with juries deciding not to impose the state’s highest punishment against the Aurora theater shooter and another man convicted of five murders in Denver.

    Opinion polls consistently show the death penalty is widely supported by Colorado voters. More than two-thirds of Coloradans said the favored keeping the death penalty in a Quinnipiac poll last Summer.

    http://www.9news.com/story/news/loca...year/78696738/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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