The Post Editorial: The death penalty isn’t applied equally in Colorado.
No one ran for office promising to repeal the death penalty in Colorado. It’s not a popular public policy that promises to help the middle class or tackle climate change.
Rather, repealing the death penalty is a difficult vote cast in defense of those accused of heinous crimes; it is a profile in political courage.
Sens. Angela Williams and Julie Gonzales and Reps. Jeni James Arndt and Adrienne Benavidez have shown their courage by introducing Senate Bill 182, which would repeal the death penalty from Colorado law.
But the road ahead is difficult with reports indicating that four Democrats may be unsure of how they would vote on the bill.
There are compelling arguments for keeping capital punishment on the books, especially from district attorneys who say they would be unable to extract guilty pleas from those facing life without parole unless the possibility of execution was looming in the background.
It was a small blessing in a sea of evil that the family of Shanann Watts and her two daughters, who were brutally murdered in Weld County, was spared a long trail by a guilty plea.
District Attorney Michael Rourke, who oversaw the plea deal in the Watts’ case, told The Denver Post’s Elise Schmelzer that “Without this tool that we have at our disposal right now, reserved for the worst of the worst, those pleas simply don’t happen.”
Please pause for a moment to consider the ramifications of that statement. We mean no disrespect to Rourke who handled the Watts’ case well and is expressing a commonly held opinion among this state’s district attorneys — but as a society we should shy away from eliciting guilty pleas not by the strength of the evidence we have against someone, but by the horrors of the punishment they could face if the trial doesn’t go their way.
“I really don’t view it as a bargaining chip,” Denver District Attorney Beth McCann told Schmelzer.
Reports from the Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers indicate that people do plead guilty when they are innocent to avoid the risk of losing at trial and facing decades more in prison or a seat on death row.
Colorado last put someone to death in 1997, and only three people remain on death row, one of whom has a temporary stay of execution that only a governor can revoke.
The penalty has been used sporadically at best and has become a relic on our books with jurors twice, recently, refusing to impose death on those they found guilty of mass killings.
The inconsistent and subjective nature of this law has left it open to criticism.
How can we say with certainty that justice is being done when whether or not you face the death penalty for a crime is determined by what ZIP code you commit the crime in and what the political leanings of that area are.
Our justice system needs to be applied equally, and that has not been the case.
Even when a death sentence is supported by a jury, the ensuing appeals last for decades and can draw out the pain of survivors for longer than an original trial would have.
The Denver Post editorial board has opposed the death penalty for decades for these reasons, and Colorado lawmakers should repeal this bad law. Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, vice president of circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.