The StandDown Texas Project

Returns in Key Governor Elections

"Hickenlooper declares victory; Beauprez refuses to concede in Colorado," is by John Frank and Joey Bunch for the Denver Post.

A bleary-eyed John Hickenlooper declared victory in the governor's race Wednesday morning after a long night and early morning waiting for the ballot count in a razor-thin contest against Republican Bob Beauprez.

Though the death penalty was a highly visilbe part of the Colorado race, earlier polling indicated that it was not a significant issue to the overwhelming majority of voters.  Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.

"Hassan wins second term as N.H. governor," is by Kathleen Ronayne of Associated Press, via the Boston Globe.

Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan defeated Republican businessman Walt Havenstein on Tuesday to win a second term in office after a campaign dominated by the economy.

Hassan, leading into the final days of the campaign, was never down in the polls.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "Wolf defeats Corbett," by Thomas Fitzgerald.

Democrat Tom Wolf, a businessman from central Pennsylvania, was elected governor Tuesday in his first campaign for political office.

Republican Tom Corbett became the first governor to lose a bid for reelection in the state's modern history.

Wolf stated during the campaign that he believed Pennsylvania needed a moratorium on capital punishment.

Related posts are in the politics category index. 

In Colorado

"Dunlap death row decision by Gov. John Hickenlooper haunts victim’s father but not other family members," is by Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post.

A heartbroken father whose daughter was killed during a rampage at a suburban Chuck E. Cheese blistered Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper for granting an indefinite reprieve to death row inmate Nathan Dunlap.

Dennis O’Connor called Hickenlooper a “coward” in a tough-to-watch 13-minute video released Monday by A Better Colorado Future, a political 527 overseen by Republican political operatives Andy George and Kelly Maher. His daughter, Colleen, was 17.

And:

O’Connor’s former wife, 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.

"Hickenlooper’s Death Penalty Problem," is Wall Street Journal analysis by Kimberley A. Strassel.

Democrats have wanted nothing more than to make this midterm about local issues, hoping to distance the party from the unpopularity of President Obama’s Washington. It’s working in a few states, much to the peril of Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

A video debuted in the Centennial State this week, one that has the potential to supercharge an already contentious local issue playing big against Mr. Hickenlooper’s re-election: the death penalty.

Earlier unrelated coverage from Colorado begins at the link.  You can jump to news of Colorado politics; polling that shows few voters are concerned about capital punishment in the governor's race.

A Compromised Case in Colorado?

Westword posts, "Sir Mario Owens: False Evidence in Death-Penalty Case a "New Low," Defense Claims," by Alan Prendergast.

Determined to demonstrate just how far he believed Arapahoe County prosecutors had strayed over the line in the effort to obtain the death penalty against his client, defense attorney Jim Castle resorted to a visual aid. During a hearing late Friday, he presented District Judge Gerald Rafferty with a wheeled cart piled with documents that he said prosecutors were obligated to turn over to the defense before trial but failed to do so -- a transgression of due-process rights known as a Brady violation.

"There are so many violations in this case, I can't cover them all," Castle said. "How did this happen? This shouldn't happen. If it's allowed, we will accept a new low for justice in Colorado."

Castle's plea capped two weeks of convoluted -- and, at times, disturbing -- testimony and argument in an evidentiary hearing over whether government misconduct tainted the 2008 death sentence imposed on Sir Mario Owens. Along with co-defendant Robert Ray, Owens was convicted of the murders of Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, in 2005; Marshall-Fields had been expected to testify against the two men in another homicide investigation.

Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link. Also available, more recent unrelated news from Colorado.

The responsibility of the state to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense was articulated in the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland; more via Oyez.