Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll writes, "Let Hick grant clemency." Here's an extended excerpt:
Imagine this unlikely scenario: Our supremely secular Colorado governor receives unsolicited moral advice from a Catholic prelate — and takes it seriously.
But it happened, according to John Hickenlooper's recent account on Colorado Public Radio. When Archbishop Charles Chaput left town 18 months ago for Philadelphia, he invited the governor to breakfast, where they spent a "significant amount of time" talking about the death penalty.
When Hickenlooper told Chaput he'd always been "sort of an eye for an eye person," Chaput retorted that "there's no language like that anywhere in the New Testament," adding that "to a large extent, Catholic theology is based upon forgiveness, and that only God has a right to make that decision."
"Just keep looking inside yourself," was Chaput's parting advice. "Just keep thinking about it, keep talking about it, and [clarity on the issue] will come to you."
Clarity from the governor may be needed sooner rather than later now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Nathan Dunlap, who sits on death row for the 1993 murder of four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese. And while you can never count out a good defense team, Dunlap's time is running out. Arapahoe County prosecutors last week said they'd consult with the attorney general and then file a motion asking the district court to "lift the current stay of execution, issue a warrant and set a week for the execution."
But Hickenlooper can stop that execution and, when the time comes, should.
He should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole even if he hasn't fully arrived at Chaput's view of the death penalty. It should be enough for the governor that Dunlap's execution would be singularly absurd, from almost any standpoint you care to examine.
Colorado may not officially have abolished the death penalty — yet — but it may as well have.
Clarity from the governor may be needed sooner rather than later now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Nathan Dunlap, who sits on death row for the 1993 murder of four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese. And while you can never count out a good defense team, Dunlap's time is running out. Arapahoe County prosecutors last week said they'd consult with the attorney general and then file a motion asking the district court to "lift the current stay of execution, issue a warrant and set a week for the execution."
But Hickenlooper can stop that execution and, when the time comes, should.
He should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole even if he hasn't fully arrived at Chaput's view of the death penalty. It should be enough for the governor that Dunlap's execution would be singularly absurd, from almost any standpoint you care to examine.
Colorado may not officially have abolished the death penalty — yet — but it may as well have.
"Colorado Death Penalty Called Unconstitutional By Attorneys, Scholars," is by Scot Kersgaard for the Colorado Independent. It's via Huffington Post.
Colorado’s death penalty is not only massively expensive, critics say it is also unconstitutional because it is so randomly sought.
A study released last year by DU Law Professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin showed that from 1999 to 2010, 92 percent of 544 Colorado murders had at least one of the aggravating factors that need to be present for a defendant to be eligible for death, yet the death penalty was sought in only five of those cases — less than 1 percent.
The study was commissioned by Edward Montour’s legal defense team, and thus paid for by the state. Montour, already serving life without parole, is fighting to stay off of death row for a murder committed in prison.
One of his attorneys, David Lane, argues that while the Supreme Court has instructed states to narrow the field of who qualifies for the death penalty, Colorado has done the opposite, creating so many aggravating factors that death could be sought in just about every murder committed in Colorado. With 92 percent of Colorado murder cases being eligible for the death penalty, but with death being sought so rarely in the state, Lane says, “The only check is prosecutorial discretion.”
He notes that the only Colorado death filings recently have come from the 18th Judicial District of Douglas and Arapahoe counties where he says prosecutors “are in love with the death penalty.” With only one judicial district ever seeking the death penalty, Lane says the death penalty is pursued randomly in Colorado, thus making it unconstitutional.
Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.
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