Think Outside the Cage: Bill Targets Death Penalty

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Bill Targets Death Penalty

The Denver Post

There are many questions that Charles Alvin Johnson may never see answered about the death of his daughter Regina, who was strangled in 2006.

What raced through her head as she lay bound, realizing she would die? How could a 110-pound woman have provoked such rage?

Who killed her?

"I'd like to know what kind of animal we're dealing with," said Johnson, 63, of Denver. "We find the guy, we convict the guy and we put him away for life. That suffering part would bring me happiness."

Johnson and more than 500 others who have lost friends and family to unsolved murders are pushing a plan to end Colorado's death penalty and spend the savings to investigate the state's more than 1,300 cold cases.

The bill, which House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, said he plans to introduce next week, has already sparked opposition from the state's top prosecutors and promises to prompt a political firefight. It threatens to put Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, a former district attorney and a devout Catholic, in tricky territory as well.