Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Death Penalty Bill Dies

The bill to end the death penalty in Colorado died today. I had hoped, of course, that we had suddenly become incredibly enlightened enough to end this barbaric practice. Not yet, apparently. Our thanks go out to all the people who pushed so hard to get this bill passed.

Maybe next time.

Democrats helped kill a colleague's bill today that would have shifted funding from death-penalty prosecutions to paying for more cold-case murder investigations.

On a 35-30 vote, lawmakers finished off House Bill 1094, which would have cut in half the state attorney general's four-member death-penalty prosecution team to free up $180,000 to fund a proposed cold-case unit to crack Colorado's 1,200 unsolved murders.

Republicans defeated the bill with 10 votes from Democrats, including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver. Rocky Mountain News

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