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Death penalty foes rallyBack bill that would abolish death penalty in ColoradoJoshua Wolpe, DDN Staff WriterTuesday, April 7, 2009 | |
A coalition of organizations gathered at the Capitol yesterday to support legislation that would abolish the death penalty and reallocate those funds to focus on solving cold cases.
Yesterday’s gathering included a number of organizations representing family members of unsolved murder victims, civil rights, criminal justice and religious groups.
House Bill 1274, sponsored by House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, passed out of the House Appropriations Committee last Friday by a vote of 8-4 and is scheduled to be debated in the full House on April 15.
The money saved by the repeal of the death penalty, which proponents of the bill estimate at $4 million per year, would be spent on Colorado’s approximately 1,400 unsolved cold cases, some of which date back to 1970. Those funds would go towards the creation of a “Cold Case Team” at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
“We are in this to trade vengeance for justice,” said Howard Morton, executive director of the non-profit Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons. “We are willing to give up the death penalty to get more specialized investigation of our loved ones. When a murder is not solved in a reasonable amount of time at the local level, then the state must step in. Murder is a crime against the state.”
Only one inmate has been executed in Colorado in the past 40 years — that was Gary Davis, killed via lethal injection in 1997. One prominent supporter of the death penalty believes that very low number is a positive, and the death penalty can serve as a deterrent.
“I am opposed to the legislature abolishing the death penalty,” said Colorado Attorney General John W. Suthers. “While a lot of opponents say we do not use it much in Colorado, I say that is a good thing. We should leave it on the books. There are still heinous crimes for which the majority of citizens see incarceration as an inadequate response. If an inmate is in prison for life and decides to premeditatively kill a correctional officer, is it appropriate to just move them to another cell and take away their TV privileges?
“Colorado has voted twice on the death penalty — in 1966 and 1974 — and it was overwhelmingly approved. If opponents of the death penalty want to see it abolished, let’s let them vote on it rather than have the legislature push it through.”
Weissmann disagrees with Suthers’ belief of the death penalty as a deterrent.
“There has never been any study showing it’s a deterrent,” he said. “If it is, it is certainly not helping. Anyone who considers committing a crime of that nature in a state with the death penalty can easily cross a state line to commit it where it doesn’t exist.”
New Mexico abolishes penalty
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill repealing the state’s death penalty on March 18, joining 14 other states that do not have capital punishment. New Mexico’s bill replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
| Comments: |
| sayjack @ 2009-04-07 07:05:51 | I've seen studies that suggest it cost just as much to execute someone as it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life. If the cost is the same, then it comes down to deterrence. If deterrence can not be proven, then we are left with only one choice: to abolish the death penalty. Studies that show the deterrence of the death penalty and those that show their is now deterrence are many and generally breakdown along ideological lines (liberal vs. conservative).
“We are in this to trade vengeance for justice,” said Howard Morton. I think someone should let Howard Morton know that revenge is a part of justice. |
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| JM @ 2009-04-07 09:43:09 | SayJack - most studies I've seen have shown that seeking the death penalty is MUCH more expensive than seeking life imprisonment. When these funds could be better spent on crime control and victims' services, the decision to end the death penalty seems obvious. |
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