It's Time To Repeal the Death Penalty in Colorado
ACTION ALERT –IT’S TIME TO END THE DEATH PENALTY IN COLORADO
Action Needed before Noon on Tues, March 19th
Sponsors: Senators Guzman (D), M. Carroll (D) and Representatives Levy (D), Melton (D), Priola (R)
CCJRC
is part of the statewide coalition led by Coloradans for Alternatives
to the Death Penalty Foundation in support of House Bill 13-1264.
We urge CCJRC members to add their voice and effort to help make Colorado the 19th
state in the country to abolish the death penalty. In doing so,
Colorado would join Maryland which last week became the sixth state in
six years to pass legislation ending capital punishment.
In
2009, a bill to repeal the death penalty in Colorado passed the House
of Representatives (by one vote) but was defeated in the Senate (by one
vote). We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again!
PLEASE CONTACT MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMMITTEE
AND URGE THEIR SUPPORT OF HB13-1264
Action Needed before noon on Tues, March 19, 2013
CHAIR: Rep. Daniel Kagan (D) (HD 3-Arapahoe): 303-866-2921 repkagan@gmail.com
VICE-CHAIR: Rep. Pete Lee (D) (HD 18-El Paso):303-866-2932 pete.lee.house@state.co.us
Rep. John Buckner (D) (HD 40-Arapahoe): 303-866-2944 john.buckner.house@state.co.us
Rep. Lois Court (D) (HD 6-Denver): 303-866-2967 lois.court.house@state.co.us
Rep. Bob Gardner (R) (HD 20-El Paso): 303-866-2191 bob.gardner.house@state.co.us
Rep. Polly Lawrence (R) (HD 39-Douglas, Teller):303-866-2935 polly.lawrence.house@state.co.us
Rep. Mike McLachlan (D) (HD59-La Plata, Archuleta, Gunnison, Ouray, Hinsdale, San Juan):
303-866-2914 mike.mclachlan.house@state.co.us
Rep. Carole Murray (R) (HD 45-Douglas): 303-866-2948 murrayhouse45@gmail.com
Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D) (HD 28-Jefferson): 303-866-2939 brittany.pettersen.house@state.co.us
Rep. Joe Salazar (D) (HD 31-Adams): 303-866-2918 joseph.salazar.house@state.co.us
Rep. Jared Wright (R) (HD 54-Mesa, Delta): 303-866-2583 jared.wright.house@state.co.us
BACKGROUND
As
fellow human beings, when a person is murdered we grieve for the victim
and their loved ones. We pray that they find strength and peace and
that they are surrounded by love, compassion, and support. Some will
also pray for the person who committed the murder and their devastated
loved ones. The ripple effect of trauma and suffering is incalculable.
When
the death penalty is sought and imposed it is done so in the name of
The People of the State of Colorado. For most of us, we have an opinion
one-way-or-the-other but we’re removed from the process and go about
our lives largely unaffected.
However,
having the death penalty requires that some people be active
participants in the “machinery of death”– regular people sitting as
jurors will have their lives invaded by the responsibility of deciding
who lives and who dies -- defense attorneys will fight to the core of
their existence to keep their client alive, whether s/he is guilty or
not – and medical and prison staff who must perform the execution are
turned into killers. This is what we require of some people because The
People of the State of Colorado have the death penalty. So, the ripple
effect of trauma and suffering expands….
HB13-1264
would repeal the death penalty as a sentencing option in future cases.
This is our opportunity to say, Not In My Name, as part of the community
that is The People of the State of Colorado.
The death penalty will never be consistently or fairly applied.
Colorado
has executed 103 people since 1859. A 102 of them were executed before
the US Supreme Court struck down almost all state death penalty laws in
1972, including Colorado’s. Our last execution was in 1997. There are
currently three men on death row in Colorado. All three are
African-American and all were convicted in Arapahoe County’s 18th
Judicial District. A University of Denver law school study found that
92% of Colorado’s first-degree murder cases between 1999 and 2010 met
the criteria for a death sentence. However, prosecutors sought a death
sentence in only 3 percent of the cases and a death sentence was imposed
in only 0.6 percent of cases. http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_22793170?IADID=Search-www.denverpost.com-www.denverpost.com#2928675
We don’t need the death penalty to serve the ends of justice
If
the death penalty is repealed, a person convicted of first degree
murder would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. According
to the Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Foundation, in
Colorado, it costs 20 times as much to prosecute a capital murder case
as it costs to prosecute a first degree murder case where the death
penalty is not sought. This does not include the cost of hearing appeals
that can stretch for years and even decades.
Executing an innocent person is a risk we can completely avoid doing again
Several
people executed in Colorado avowed their innocence – although it is
impossible to know if that’s true. However, in 2011 then-Governor Bill
Ritter granted a full and unconditional posthumous pardon to a severely
developmentally disabled man, Joe Arridy, who was executed in 1939.
Governor Ritter stated in his press release that he granted the pardon
on the basis that there was a great likelihood that he was innocent and
that although a pardon wouldn’t undo this tragic event, “[i]t is in the
interests of justice and simple decency, however, to restore his good
name.”
Two other men know the fallible
of the criminal justice system all too well. Tim Masters was convicted
in 1999 in Ft. Collins of first degree murder and sentenced to life
without parole. His conviction was vacated and he was exonerated in
2011 based on evidence indicating that he was innocent of the crime.
Similarly, Robert Dewey was convicted in 1996 in Grand Junction of first
degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. His conviction was
vacated in 2012 based on evidence that proved his innocence.
It’s time to stop tinkering with the machinery of death
In
the effort to have “humane” executions, the method of execution has
changed from hanging, to asphyxiation in a gas chamber, to lethal
injection. Court decisions have deemed unconstitutional the execution
of juveniles or those who are severely developmentally disabled.
In
order to address concerns about “unfairness” and “inconsistency”, the
decision to impose a life or death sentence was changed by the Colorado
legislature in 1995 from a unanimous vote of the jury to a three-judge
panel. The three-judge panel law was deemed unconstitutional by the
Colorado Supreme Court in 2003 and the three death sentences that had
been imposed by a panel of judges were all converted to life sentences.
US
Supreme Court Justice, Harry A. Blackmun, a life-long Republican and
conservative jurist dissented in the opinion in 1972 that invalidated
capital punishment (Furman v. Georgia) and voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1976 (Gregg v. Georgia).
In 1994, shortly before his retirement from the US Supreme Court,
Justice Blackmun announced that he now believed that the death penalty
was unconstitutional, in all circumstances.
``From this day forward, I no longer will tinker with the machinery of
death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored -- indeed, I have
struggled, along with a majority of this Court -- to develop procedural
and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of
fairness to the death penalty endeavor... Rather than continue to coddle
the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been
achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and
intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty
experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no
combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save
the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The
basic question -- does the system accurately and consistently determine
which defendants `deserve' to die? -- cannot be answered in the
affirmative... The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal,
and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some
defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and
reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.''
-- Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun (1994)
For more information:
History of the Death Penalty in Colorado, by University of Colorado Professor Michael Radelet http://pdweb.coloradodefenders.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=151&Itemid=103
Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Foundation http://www.coadp.org/
National Coalition Against the Death Penalty http://www.ncadp.org/
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