[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., IND., MO., KAN., COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 25




PENNSYLVANIA:

Supreme Court declines death penalty case


The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would not hear a case challenging 
the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The appeal was filed on behalf of Shonda Walters, who was sentenced to death in 
May 2006 for murdering her next door neighbor with a hatchet and stealing his 
car.

The U.S. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for the Eastern District upheld the 
lower court's death sentence, saying the court found the evidence sufficient to 
support her conviction for 1st-degree murder.

In appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, Walters asked the justices to 
weigh in on whether the imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth 
Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The court did not 
give any statement supporting or dissenting from its decision to reject the 
case.

Court watchers have been expecting the justices to take up the 
constitutionality of the death penalty in light of a dissent by Justice Stephen 
Breyer last year. Experts said Breyer's dissent provided a blueprint for a 
broad challenge to capital punishment.

Justice Antonin Scalia, a member of the court's conservative wing, said in 
September that he "wouldn't be surprised" if the court ruled the death penalty 
unconstitutional, suggesting there are at least 4 justices who hold that view.

The court appears to be waiting for the right case to weigh in.

The case that was declined on Monday is Walter v. Pennsylvania.

****************

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal to Outlaw Death Penalty


The Supreme Court is rejecting a Pennsylvania inmate's appeal to consider 
banning the death penalty across the United States.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning away a challenge from death row 
inmate Shonda Walter.

Walter's appeal plays off Justice Stephen Breyer's call in an impassioned 
dissent in June to re-evaluate the death penalty in light of problems involving 
its imposition and use.

Breyer renewed his plea last week when he was the lone justice willing to give 
a last-minute reprieve to an Alabama death row inmate who was later put to 
death.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

U.S. Supreme Court denies appeal from condemned killer Delmer Smith in Manatee 
murder case


The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Delmer 
Smith, the man convicted and sentenced to die for the 2009 murder of Kathleen 
Briles at her home in Terra Ceia.

The denial to hear Smith's case came on Monday, according to the website of the 
nation's highest court.

In July 2015, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death 
sentence for Smith.

"After a thorough review of all the issues raised by Smith, and after our own 
independent review of the proportionality of Smith's sentence of death, we 
affirm Smith's conviction for 1st-degree murder and sentence of death," the 
Florida justices wrote in their opinion when they upheld the conviction last 
year.

A jury convicted Smith on Aug. 2, 2012, of the 1st-degree murder of Briles, who 
was beaten to death with her cast-iron antique sewing machine in her Terra Ceia 
home on Aug. 9, 2009. When the verdict was read, Smith showed no emotion.

On May 28, 2013, Circuit Judge Peter Dubensky sentenced Smith to death with a 
unanimous recommendation from the jury.

Smith's appeal was based on claims that he was entitled to relief because the 
trial court made mistakes in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal, 
denying his motion for mistrial, in permitting one inmate to testify that he 
threatened a witness, denying a continuance, failing to find the murder 
heinous, atrocious or cruel amd rejecting 2 proposed mitigating factors. He 
also argued the state's death penalty scheme is unconstitutional.

Messages for comment were left for both Smith's public defender, Julius 
Aulisio, and Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol M. Dittmar.

(source: Bradenton Herald)





************

Death penalty ruling spurs legislative action


A Senate committee this week will begin working on a legislative fix after the 
U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Florida's death-penalty sentencing method.

The court Jan. 12 found that the method violates the U.S. Constitution's Sixth 
Amendment right to a trial by jury because it gives too much power to judges in 
imposing death sentences.

That will force lawmakers to approve changes in the death-penalty system and 
has raised questions about death row inmates sentenced under the old method.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday has set aside an entire 
meeting to hear presentations from Senate staff members and representatives of 
several agencies and groups, including Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, 
Gov. Rick Scott's office, the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, the 
Florida Public Defenders Association, The Florida Association of Criminal 
Defense Lawyers, the Office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel and The 
Florida Bar.

(source: news4jax.com)






INDIANA:

Gary man sentenced to death begins post-conviction relief process


A Gary man sentenced to death after being found guilty of killing his wife and 
2 stepchildren has begun seeking post-conviction relief, according to court 
records.

Attorneys for Kevin Isom, 50, recently filed in Lake Criminal Court a petition 
to seek post-conviction relief in the capital case.

Acceptance of the petition was taken under advisement pending the filing of 
notarized affirmation of the documents, according to online court records.

In the petition, Isom claims his attorneys did not effectively argue to exclude 
his statement to police, nor did they effectively present a plea agreement the 
state had offered that would have resulted in him being sentenced to life in 
prison without the possibility of parole.

He also alleges the attorneys didn't argue effectively that he wasn't competent 
to stand trial, because he had no memory of the homicides.

The petition argues that Isom's attorneys during the penalty phase of the trial 
didn't effectively present his social and mental history, didn't present a 
mental health expert and didn't object to comments made by the prosecutor.

Isom was represented by private and later by public defense attorneys the 
nearly 6 years the case was pending in Lake County Criminal Court before the 
5-week trial started.

Isom's current public defense attorneys note the petition is likely to be 
amended, because they are still reviewing the large volume of documents and 
evidence associated with the case.

A Lake County jury in 2013 took 2 hours to find Isom guilty of killing 
Cassandra Isom, 40; Michael Moore, 16; and Andria Cole, 13, in their home in 
the 5700 block of Hemlock Avenue in Gary. Isom allegedly told officers after 
his arrest, "I can't believe I killed my family, this can't be real."

The Indiana Supreme Court last year affirmed Isom's murder convictions and the 
jury's recommendation that he be sentenced to death.

Post-conviction relief is o1 of 3 types of reviews that capital cases can be 
subject to, according to the Indiana Public Defender Council website. Capital 
cases can also be subject to a federal review to determine if a defendant's 
constitutional rights were violated.

Isom is 1 of 13 men on Indiana's death row. Debra D. Brown, 53, was sentenced 
to death in 1986 by a Lake County jury, but she is currently being held in 
Ohio, according to the Indiana Department of Correction website.

(source: nwitimes.com)



MISSOURI:

Prosecutors will re-try Reginald Clemons in Chain of Rocks murders


Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce announced Monday she will re-try Reginald 
Clemons, whose 1st-degree murder conviction and death sentence were thrown out 
by the Missouri Supreme Court in November.

Joyce said she will seek the death penalty again.

Clemons had been fighting his death sentence for the 1991 murder of sisters 
Julie and Robin Kerry on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. In a 4-3 decision 
written by Chief Justice Patricia Breckenridge, the state's high court sent the 
case back to circuit court, giving Joyce 60 days to refile charges.

In a comment posted to Twitter, Joyce said her office has reviewed the state's 
evidence, availability of witnesses and reporting officers and discussed the 
case with victims' families. She said she has filed charges of 1st-degree 
murder, rape and robbery.

She said that "modern DNA testing" had corroborated the state's cases against 
Clemons and two other men convicted of murder in the case, Marlin Gray and 
Antonio Richardson.

"2 charges of rape against Clemons were originally filed by prosecutors in this 
case," she said. "At the time of this incident, the law prohibited prosecutors 
from trying Clemons for both the murders and the rapes at the same time because 
the death penalty for murder was being sought.

"After Clemons was convicted, prosecutors dropped the rape charges because 
Clemons had been sentenced to death," she said.

Ginny Kerry, the mother of the victims, said in an interview that prosecutors 
were "doing what we want them to do."

"We all met with the Circuit Attorney's Office weeks ago, and we want the new 
trial to go on," she said. "Why would we want him being set free for killing my 
kids? He's guilty, he's always been guilty and he knows he's guilty."

Clemons' attorney, Joshua Levine, with the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm 
in New York, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Supreme Court's decision to throw out the murder conviction cited the 
findings of Michael Manners, a retired judge appointed by the state's highest 
court as "special master" to review Clemons' case.

Manners found that Clemons had failed to prove his innocence in the case, but 
concluded that St. Louis prosecutors wrongly suppressed evidence and also found 
that detectives had beat Clemons into confessing to the crimes.

Manners said in his report that the jury in Clemons' case might never have 
heard his taped confession if the state had not failed to disclose a probation 
officer's statement that he saw injuries to Clemons' face after a police 
interrogation.

The officer also claimed that one of his supervisors and the lead prosecutor in 
the case attempted to convince him to change his written report of the injury. 
He refused, but the report was altered anyway to remove any reference to the 
injury.

In dissent, Judge Paul C. Wilson wrote that there had been no failure to 
produce evidence by the state. The state had given Clemons' attorneys the 
identity of the probation officer "and the document on which (he) supposedly 
noted this observation long before trial," Wilson wrote.

And he said Clemons was not entitled to relief unless the evidence would have 
been likely to change the verdict.

Clemons remains in prison on a 15-year sentence for his conviction in 2007 of 
assaulting a Department of Corrections employee.

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)






KANSAS:

Efforts to repeal Kansas death penalty may be stymied by U.S. Supreme Court's 
ruling


Leading up to the start of the 2016 legislative session, Kansas death penalty 
opponents thought they had a good chance of passing a bill this year to repeal 
the law.

In fact, a bill was formally introduced Friday in the House, with 17 cosponsors 
from both sides of the aisle, including religious conservative Republicans as 
well as liberal and centrist Democrats.

It would prohibit death sentences for any crimes committed after Juy 1, and it 
would create a new crime of "aggravated murder" punishable by life in prison 
without the possibility of parole.

But after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling this week that put one of the 
most infamous mass murders in Kansas history back in the spotlight, some 
lawmakers say those chances may have dimmed.

"Up until (Wednesday), we had enough votes that we could have passed it in the 
House," said Rep. John Bradford, R-Lansing, one of the conservative cosponsors. 
"Right now, after that decision, I think it's going to be questionable."

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Kansas Supreme Court ruling and 
upheld the death sentences of three convicted murderers in Kansas, including 
Jonathan and Reginald Carr, the two brothers who who killed four people and 
attempted to kill a fifth during a crime spree in Wichita in December 2000.

In the same opinion, the court also reversed the Kansas court in another death 
penalty case, that of Sidney Gleason, who was convicted of the 2004 murder of a 
Great Bend woman and her boyfriend, because the decision in that case was based 
on the court's ruling in the Carr brothers case.

Those were the 2nd and 3rd cases in which the U.S. high court reversed the 
Kansas court on death penalty cases. In 2013, the U.S. court also upheld the 
death sentence of Scott Cheever, who shot and killed Greenwood County Sheriff 
Matt Samuels in 2005.

Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, and since then several people have 
been sentenced to death. But so far, none have been executed because the Kansas 
Supreme Court had consistently overturned or vacated their sentences, usually 
on technical procedural grounds.

In 2014, in fact, the Kansas court vacated the Carr brothers' sentences, 
thrusting the court itself into the middle of election-year politics. 2 of the 
court's justices, Eric Rosen and Lee Johnson, were up for retention that year, 
and both of them won, but by much narrower margins than usual.

Now, with that infamous massacre back in the spotlight, some supporters of 
repeal say it will be hard to vote for it without appearing like they're 
letting the Carr brothers off the hook, even though the repeal bill, as it's 
currently drafted, would not apply retroactively to them.

"I'm sure some would perceive that," said Rep. John Barker, R-Salina, who 
chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where the bill could be referred. "But I 
look at it from a different perspective. You have your personal convictions, 
whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, whether you're for the death penalty or 
against the death penalty. Normally (a court ruling) doesn't change your 
personal convictions. It may add pressure that they don't want to go forward 
this year, though."

Rep. Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence, another cosponsor of the bill, said he is 
also hopeful that the Carr brothers decision won't affect how lawmakers vote on 
the issue.

"The bill is not retroactive, so any existing death sentences could still be 
carried out," he said.

Highberger also said the movement to abolish the death penalty has been gaining 
momentum among conservatives.

"The conservative argument, as I understand it is, one, the death penalty is an 
inefficient government program," he said. "We've spent millions of dollars on 
it and we haven't executed anyone since 1965."

"Also," he said, "I think people are finally realizing it might be inconsistent 
with conservative beliefs about small government and limited government. If you 
only believe in limited government, do you want government having the power to 
kill people?"

But Sen. Jeff King, R-Independence, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee 
and is a supporter of the death penalty, said he doesn't buy the argument that 
the law is ineffective because it hasn't been used yet.

"The three decisions of the Kansas Supreme Court that have prevented the death 
penalty have all been overturned by the United States Supreme Court," he said. 
"The misapplication of the federal Constitution by the Kansas Supreme Court 
cannot be used as a justification for repealing the law."

On Monday, House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, is expected to refer the 
death penalty bill to a committee.

Barker said it will be up to Merrick and the House GOP leadership team to 
decide whether the bill will get a hearing, and whether it will ever be voted 
on by the full House.

(source: Shawnee Dispatch)






COLORADO:

Why death penalty abolitionists hit the snooze button in Colorado this year


Activists working to put a stop to Colorado???s death penalty have decided not 
to push a legislative agenda this year. Capital punishment advocates are moving 
forward to make it easier for prosecutors to secure a death sentence.

One day in early December, a group of about two dozen activists, academics, 
lawyers, funders, and others gathered at the First Baptist Church in downtown 
Denver. Lawmakers were about to return to the Capitol for another year of 
legislative pugilism, and the meeting was set up to strategize about an issue 
the group had been working on for years: How to get rid of the death penalty in 
Colorado.

In the spring, lawmakers next door in conservative Nebraska had voted to 
abolish capital punishment, overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts veto, and becoming 
the 1st conservative state to do so in 4 decades. But a measure to thwart 
abolition hit Nebraska's ballot soon after. Funded by that state's governor and 
his father, the ballot measure has put the issue on hold for Nebraska voters to 
decide later this year.

Meanwhile, within the borders of our own square state, jurors in August decided 
not to sentence the killer in the Aurora theater shooting to death because they 
couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. Not long after, a different jury chose to 
give a man convicted of killing 5 people in Fero's Bar and Grill in Denver life 
in prison instead of lethal injection. Then, in December, a gunman had shouted 
out in a Colorado Springs courtroom that he was guilty of slaughtering 3 people 
at a Planned Parenthood clinic, perhaps setting the stage for yet another 
made-for-TV death penalty trial against the backdrop of the Rockies.

In was around the time of the Colorado Springs rampage that a conservative 
Nebraska legislator named Colby Coash would travel to Colorado. His charge: 
Meet 1-on-1 and in groups with Republican lawmakers here to explain the success 
of repeal in Nebraska, and to talk about his personal Road to Damascus moment 
when he'd attended an execution rally outside a prison in college. On the 
pro-death side of the rally, he told lawmakers, he recalled a raucous bacchanal 
complete with fireworks, a band, and whoops and hollers as a clock counted down 
toward the execution. On the other side of the rally, people prayed silently 
and soberly in protest. That night, Coash saw an ugliness to state-sponsored 
execution that he didn't want to be a part of.

In an interview, Coash told The Colorado Independent that he left his meetings 
with Colorado lawmakers feeling like he'd given them some new things to think 
about when it comes to the conservative argument for ending capital punishment.

"My hope for Colorado is that they will follow Nebraska's lead ... and see the 
death penalty in the same way Nebraska saw the death penalty, which is a 
broken, inefficient government program that just doesn't need to be on the 
books anymore," he said.

'Quite divided'

By the time of their December meeting, with the legislative session just around 
the corner, some of the anti-death penalty allies felt the time was ripe to get 
behind a big push to repeal capital punishment in Colorado once and for all. 
If, of course, lawmakers saw an opportunity to do so this year. After all, 2016 
is an election year in a split-partisan Capitol when each member of the House 
is up for re-election along with half the Senate.

"The group was quite divided about whether this was the right time or not," 
says Stacy Anderson who runs Colorado's anti-death penalty Better Priorities 
Initiative.

There were essentially 3 camps.

In one camp was Bob Autobee, the father of a prison guard who was killed in 
2002 by an inmate already in prison for the death of his 11-month-old daughter. 
Autobee, a former corrections officer himself whose life unravelled after his 
son's murder, originally supported the death penalty for his son's killer, 
Edward Montour. But over the years, Autobee refound religion and became an 
ardent opponent of capital punishment. He's forgiven the man who fatally bashed 
his son's head with a giant soup ladle, and even protested outside the 
courthouse telling potential jurors in Montour's case, "My son wouldn't want 
the death penalty."

Autobee doesn't want to see any time wasted in the legislature or at the ballot 
box. So he made his case at December's meeting to support a repeal bill he 
hoped lawmakers would introduce and try to pass by the end of the legislative 
session this spring.

In an interview with The Colorado Independent, Autobee said he doesn't know if 
he has "10 good years left," and is sick of playing the waiting game.

My point is we've got to do it now and we've got to do it loud and hard," he 
says, noting he doesn't see the point in putting legislative efforts on hold. 
"We've waited too long."

Also at that meeting was Jeremy Sheets, an exoneree who spent 4 years on death 
row in Nebraska before the Supreme Court there overturned his conviction in 
2000.

He now lives in Aurora and wears a shirt almost every day urging people to talk 
to him about his experience as a death row survivor. He wants immediate action 
on abolition and was frustrated at the meeting by the presence of some who were 
there from out of state and were suggesting they all cool their heels a bit 
because one lawmaker or another isn't ready. At the time, Sheets remembers 
thinking: Why are you even wasting my time asking me to come here if you're 
just going to try and tell me not to do anything?

"I'm kind of frustrated with what's going on- that there is really nothing much 
going on," Sheets told The Independent.

His view: "We have to keep pushing to end the death penalty."

In another camp were people like Michael Radelet, a professor at the University 
of Colorado at Boulder who studies the death penalty and takes the long view - 
a very long view - on abolition. The professor had earlier predicted that if 
Nebraska's legislature scrapped the death penalty, the issue would come right 
back on the 2016 presidential-election-year ballot. The chances, he believes, 
are good that voters in November might send abolition down in flames, setting 
the movement back who knows how long.

Radelet isn't one for quick fixes.

"I oppose the death penalty, and I think that to try to abolish the death 
penalty this year or next year would be the dumbest thing in the world for 
death penalty abolitionists," he told The Independent.

At December's meeting, Radelet made his case for putting the issue on hold this 
year. He believes public opinion in Colorado right now is just about split 
between death and life without parole. An election-year bill to repeal capital 
punishment, he believes, would increase the likelihood of a ballot measure 
aimed at keeping the death penalty in place. His concern: an effort by death 
penalty proponents - police and prosecutors, among others - would wage a 
well-funded campaign to keep capital punishment on the books at a time when the 
Colorado electorate has yet to reach a tipping point on abolition. Public 
opinion just isn't there yet for a confident win for abolitionists at the 
ballot box, he asserted.

Instead, Radelet would rather see Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper commute the 
2 1/2 sentences for the 3 inmates currently on death row. Hickenlooper has 
already given a temporary reprieve to 1, Nathan Dunlap. Fully commuting 
Dunlap's sentence and those of Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray would, in effect, 
push forward the next scheduled execution about 2 decades. By then, public 
opinion will shift in abolition???s favor, Radelet believes.

"We know the direction that public opinion is going in," he says. "It's going 
firmly against the death penalty."

Colorado hasn't executed anyone since 1997. The last time a jury unanimously 
sent someone to death was in 2008. Because of how long these cases drag out in 
Colorado's justice system, some death penalty opponents argue the state already 
has de facto abolition.

Hickenlooper has no plans to commute sentences at this time, says his 
spokeswoman Kathy Green.

In the 3rd camp at December's meeting were those on the fence between pushing 
immediately for abolition and waiting until after the election year. One of 
them was Carla Turner who runs Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death 
Penalty.

"I feel divided," she says about it now. "I really see the reason on both 
sides."

Ultimately, some in the group left the meeting that day in December feeling 
ambivalent.

If a lawmaker were to introduce a repeal bill when the session started this 
month, they'd support it. If not, well, they'd continue their work outside the 
legislature, educating the public, holding forums, and generally tilling the 
soil of public opinion in a way they hope some day will better the conditions 
for their cause.

'The opposing team is going full speed ahead'

Fast forward to this week, and no one has come forward with a repeal bill in 
the legislature.

Hickenlooper told reporters at the start of the session he would not support 
one this year, though he believes Coloradans are moving in the direction of 
repeal. Democratic Minority Leader Lucia Guzman said she would not sponsor a 
repeal bill this year even though she'll work to fight for abolition over the 
next few years she's in the Senate.

Over lunch on a recent Wednesday at his office across the street from the 
Capitol, Denver Democratic Sen. Pat Steadman said he's disappointed in the lack 
of legislative effort.

"I thought we were going to do it this year, or at least make a good run at 
it," he said.

But at the start of the session, legislative leaders, advocates, political 
consultants and funders had all circled the wagons and basically told him and 
others they were hitting the snooze button.

For his part, Autobee says he plans to start picketing outside the Capitol just 
to let the political class know he's not going anywhere.

"Every minute we waste is putting us further behind because the opposing team 
is going full speed ahead," he says.

Indeed they are.

Last week, Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg of the Loveland area dropped 
something of a bombshell. He introduced a bill that would make it easier for 
juries in Colorado to put people to death.

Currently, all 12 jurors in a death penalty case must unanimously decide on a 
death sentence. Lundberg's bill, if passed, would make it so only 9 out of the 
12 jurors would be enough. The move was in direct response to the recent 
non-unanimous jury verdicts in the Aurora theater shooting trial and the Fero's 
bar killing trial over the summer, Lundberg says. 5 other Republican supporters 
are on the bill. No Democrats currently support it.

In an interview with The Independent, Lundberg said he came up with the idea on 
his own and hadn't talked to the District Attorneys Council before he filed the 
bill. He said he isn't totally set on 9 jurors, either. Maybe it could be 10 or 
11, but no fewer than 9. He just doesn't think 1 juror should poison the well 
in a death penalty trial.

"Part of what I'm trying to do is say 'Let's look at it, let???s talk about it, 
le'???s determine what should be occurring here,'" he said. "If the policy is 
that the death penalty is appropriate for the worst of crimes, then a jury 
should not be composed of people who disagree with that basic point. And yet a 
juror could misrepresent their views until they get to that point, and I'm 
saying I don't think one juror should skew that principle."

Death penalty opponents were quick to point out a particular irony: It would 
still take a unanimous jury to convict someone for driving under the influence 
or for shoplifting in Colorado, but not to sentence someone to death.

Doug Wilson, the head of the State Public Defender's Office, said he'd been 
expecting such a bill to drop this session. He's not so sure it would pass 
constitutional muster.

"If it were to pass, they will once again jeopardize their death convictions 
and death verdicts as they did when we had 3-judge sentencing as opposed to 
jury sentencing," he said. In 1995 lawmakers changed the law so a 3-judge panel 
could decide a death sentence, but that was deemed unconstitutional less than a 
decade later, and now only juries can deliver execution verdicts.

Meanwhile, in the lower chamber, Republican Rep. Kim Ransom of Douglas County 
told The Independent she's considering a bill that would give prosecutors a 
do-over with a new jury if they fail to win a death penalty verdict with the 
1st.

A statewide conversation

With no proposed legislation to roll back capital punishment this year, people 
with loud voices on the other side of the issue have been making noise.

One of them is George Brauchler.

Brauchler is the 18 Judicial District Attorney who prosecuted the Aurora 
theater shooting trial last year. For years, long before Brauchler took office, 
the 18th Judicial District had been a hub for death penalty prosecutions, 
something he calls a historical anomaly.

Once the Aurora theater trial ended in August and the national reporters went 
away, Brauchler's profile did not diminish. In the weeks after the trial, 
Republicans courted him to get in the GOP primary so he could take on 
Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet who is up for re-election this year. In 
late September, Brauchler announced that he would pass on the U.S. Senate race, 
but he still remains a prominent political figure beyond his stature as a 
suburban prosecutor.

In December, Robert Sanchez of Denver's 5280 magazine profiled Brauchler for a 
multi-page feature that called him "Colorado's most visible proponent of 
capital punishment." Among other personal details, the article examined how 
Brauchler's support of the death penalty runs up against his Catholicism.

In a recent interview with The Colorado Independent, Brauchler said he did not 
feel Coloradans have had a substantial statewide conversation about the death 
penalty. This is despite 2 death penalty trials over the summer, and a 2014 
gubernatorial race that at times seemed to revolve solely around the fate of 
Nathan Dunlap, the man who in 1993 murdered several people in a Chuck-E-Cheese 
and to whom Hickenlooper gave a temporary reprieve. Once a pro-death penalty 
governor, Hickenlooper has since come out against it after immersing himself in 
research as Dunlap's execution date neared. In his executive order granting the 
Dunlap reprieve, the Governor wrote that the "Repeal of the death penalty ought 
to be raised with the people of Colorado and not just their elected 
representatives." That's when he called for a statewide conversation on the 
issue.

Nearly 3 years - and 1 re-election - later, some on both sides of the issue say 
that conversation hasn't happened.

"My guess is the only person having this conversation is the guy you're talking 
to right now ... Nobody else is having this conversation," Brauchler said. "In 
what way has this conversation taken place? If it's the vote of a single juror 
in Aurora theater and a single juror in Fero's bar and therefore we've had a 
public discussion about it, that's nonsense. That's ridiculous."

In the weeks prior to the start of the latest legislative session, Brauchler 
said he expected a repeal bill to come up this year. And if it did, similar to 
what's happening next door in Nebraska, Brauchler said he would like voters to 
decide whether to keep or scrap capital punishment at the ballot box this year. 
That, he says, would be a real conversation.

"I'd want to participate in the information part of that and say 'Look, here's 
why I think the death penalty is appropriate to have and why [in] Colorado - 
unlike maybe Texas, Georgia, Kentucky and others - we use it the right way," he 
said. "I mean, we don't drag it out for murders of one in most cases. We don't 
drag it out for routine murders."

On the other side of Brauchler on the death penalty debate is Doug Wilson, who 
runs the State Public Defender's Office and oversees the attorneys who 
represented Aurora theater shooter James Holmes and now the admitted Planned 
Parenthood shooter, Robert Dear. Lately, Wilson and Brauchler have been locking 
horns, sniping at each other in the press and on social media, largely about 
one key aspect of any informed conversation about the death penalty - how much 
it's costing Colorado taxpayers.

In response to dozens of open records requests from media, Wilson's office has 
released an aggregate figure showing how much it spent on capital cases - $6.3 
million on 10 cases since 2002 - but didn't break them down by case. Wilson 
says he's ethically bound not to divulge information about particular cases. 
Brauchler says that seems "silly." But the 2 agree on 1 thing: The public has 
no idea how much Colorado taxpayers spend on trying to carry out capital 
punishment - and not enough people are talking about it.

To find out the true costs of the death penalty in Colorado will likely take a 
lot of open records requests, perhaps even a lawsuit. But there could be 
another way.

Wilson says he'd like to see lawmakers this session convene a legislative 
hearing. That process could happen formally or informally. It could come in the 
form of an existing committee or a new select committee set up by leadership 
specifically to deal with this issue. Committee members could invite all the 
stakeholders to the table: prosecutors, public defenders, agency employees from 
the departments of Corrections, Human Resources, Public Safety and others, 
staffers from the attorney general's office, local law enforcement, the 
Colorado Bureau of Investigation, members of the judicial department - whoever. 
They could bring in every government entity involved in dealing with death 
penalty cases (or just a specific case) to ask about particular costs.

In Colorado, committees can obtain subpoena power and can put people under 
oath, but it's not necessarily easy and is rarely done. To issue a subpoena for 
someone to testify before a committee would require approval from the General 
Assembly.

'Live From Death Row'

Whether such a committee will convene in the absence of a death penalty repeal 
bill this year remains to be seen, though some in the abolition movement are 
pushing for it. In the meantime, they plan to keep a conversation going as best 
they can.

Carla Turner, who directs Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a 
nonprofit educational campaign, is working with the Better Priorities 
Initiative, which is dedicated to ending capital punishment, on a string of 
public forums beginning next month.

In February, the groups will kick off a 'State of the Death Penalty' lecture 
series on the 3rd Wednesday of each month when they'll talk about combating bad 
legislation, work on figuring out how to uncover the hidden costs of capital 
punishment in Colorado, and the possibility of pushing for a statewide 
commission or task force on the issue.

In March, the groups are planning an event called 'Live From Death Row' in 
partnership with the Jesuit Regis University. A panel of experts will give a 
presentation along with family members of murder victims, and they hope to 
schedule a call-in from a death row inmate, though not from Colorado.

For Radelet, the University of Colorado professor, more education on the issue 
and no executions scheduled for the near term is the best hope for abolition.

"There are many kind Coloradans who think the solution is to go out tomorrow 
and abolish the death penalty," he says. "And I think if we did that it would 
come back and bite us in the ass."

(source: The Colorado Independent)