"Robert Autobee: ‘Everything about the death penalty is wrong’," is the Pueblo Chieftain report written by Peter Roper. There is video at the link. It's also available from the Denver Post. Here's the beginning of this must-read:
Robert Autobee’s life was taken over by rage and sorrow after his son, Sgt. Eric Autobee, was beaten to death at the Limon Correctional Facility by an inmate, Edward Montour, on Oct. 18, 2002.
“I lost 11 years of my life battling this hatred,” the 59-year-old senior Autobee said Thursday, touching one hand to his chest. “I cried every day. I was in this downward spiral. It cost me my faith. I couldn’t even pray anymore, and I’d grown up in the church.”
Forcing himself back to his Bible, Autobee decided he needed to do something almost inconceivable — forgive his son’s killer. Forgive the man who’d been convicted and sentenced to death for Eric Autobee’s death, but whose conviction was overturned early this year and now faces retrial.
“Even if he wasn’t sorry, I needed to tell him I’d forgiven him,” Autobee emphasized. “It’s what God wanted me to do. It’s what Eric would want me to do. Once I’d made that decision, all that hatred and bitterness just went away and I’ve been at peace.”
Earlier coverage of the Autobee family in Colorado begins at the link.
The Denver Post also reports, "Judge rules prosecutor did not lie in death penalty case," by Jordan Steffen.
A Douglas County judge ruled on Friday that a prosecutors in the case against Edward Montour did not intentionally lie to a judge and dismissed a request by the defense to toss out the death penalty as a punishment.
Attorneys for Montour, a convicted killer accused of beating Corrections Officer Eric Autobee to death in 2002, accused Senior Deputy District Attorney David Jones of violating a court order and lying to a judge.
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