The facts about the death penalty in Colorado
Two anti-death penalty law professors with negligible experience in criminal law, who are not even licensed to practice law in Colorado, took to the pages of The Denver Post on Dec. 11 to make the outrageous claim that the application of Colorado’s death penalty is the product of racial bias and that our law is unconstitutional. Their specious claim is based on a self-titled “2012 study” commissioned by criminal defense attorneys for a two-time murderer trying to avoid the death penalty.
The “study” produced by University of Denver law professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin has been rejected by every Colorado court in which it has been offered. One court found the professors’ study and conclusion “flaw[ed]” and a “red herring.” Another court was more blunt. It found that the professors used “a substantially skewed database” and likened their methodology as “GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out.” The court concluded “it is clear it was not an unbiased study, but one designed to provide support for a particular position and designed to reach an anticipated conclusion.”
A thoroughly researched and vigorously vetted legal article published by the marquee legal publication of the professors’ own school, the University of Denver Law Review, details the flaws in the professors’ study and the reality of the law in our state. The facts are these:
Coloradans overwhelmingly want to maintain the death penalty by a 2-1 margin, according to almost every poll.
Colorado’s current death penalty statutes make the death penalty more difficult to obtain than in any other state in the United States, or even in federal court.
The race of the defendant is not a factor in the death penalty in Colorado. Going back more than 40 years, the small difference between the percentage of convicted Colorado murders who are African-American and those receiving a death sentence is the result of just a single case.
One more fact for the professors: Last year, I sought the death penalty against a white guy who had a privileged upbringing.