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News
Colorado’s Death Row
Nathan Dunlap was convicted and sentenced
to death in 1996 for the murder of four employees
at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant.
His
direct appeal was unsuccessful. Attorneys
Phil Cherner, Colleen Scissors, and Michael
Heher recently finished litigating a massively
complicated postconviction attack in Mr.
Dunlap's
case that involved raising over 100 issues,
including matters relating to jury selection
and ineffective assistance of trial counsel.
Unfortunately, Judge Leopold of the Arapahoe
County District Court denied relief, and
the case now proceeds on appeal to the
Colorado Supreme Court, where Mr. Cherner and
Mr.
Heher
continue the fight. (9/13/03, The Abolitionist,
Volume 2, Number 2. A publication of Coloradans
Against the
Death
Penalty.)
Related Stories
- About
Broken Links
- Dunlap
Execution Date Set
Littleton -- A district court judge has
scheduled condemned murderer Nathan Dunlap's
execution for the week of Feb. 27. The
Associated Press story also quotes Rebecca
Oakes, the daughter of one of the murder
victims. "I'm not on a crusade to
save the life of Nathan Dunlap," she
said. "I'm just opposed to the death
penalty." (11/19/99, The Daily Camera)
- CO
High Court Upholds Dunlap's Death Sentence
DENVER -- The state Supreme Court on
Monday upheld the death sentence for Nathan
Dunlap who was convicted of murdering four
people at a suburban family pizza restaurant.Dunlap
had asked the justices to commute his death
sentence and additional 113 years, claiming
the trial court abused its discretion by
refusing to hear additional evidence about
factors that could have spared his life.
(9/11/01, The Daily Camera)
- Jury
in the Dark?
Now, nearly 10 years after the crime,
Nathan Dunlap's appeals attorney is arguing
that jurors might have spared him if they
had heard more than just hints of the killer's
horrific life - if they had understood
what was behind that disturbing smile.
Death penalty appeals are often dry and
legalistic. But this one tells a harrowing
story. Dunlap suffered a childhood of beatings
by a 300-pound stepfather and a violent,
delusional and sexually abusive mother,
according to documents filed in his appeal.
Dunlap's mother, grandfather and uncle
all had been hospitalized repeatedly with
diagnoses of violent, paranoid manic depression
or schizophrenia, the appeal says. (6/28/03,
Rocky Mountain News)
- Moans
of Pain in Haven of Innocence
When Nathan Dunlap was arrested the next
day, the community was out for blood. Headlines
called it a massacre, a rampage. Then-Sen.
Bill Owens, who knew two of the victims
from his own kids' parties at the restaurant,
used the crime to call for a stronger death
penalty in an editorial published on Christmas
Eve. (6/28/03, Rocky Mountain News)
- Defense,
Prison Silent on Treatment
Sides at odds over Dunlap's mental health,
won't say if he's medicated. (6/28/03,
Rocky Mountain News)
- Dunlap's
Defense
Arapahoe District Judge John Leopold made
the right call recently when he rejected
arguments that murderer Nathan Dunlap was
denied a fair trial because of ineffective
defense counsel. Dunlap in fact had the
benefit of experienced, skilled attorneys
who worked long and hard on his case, trying
to do their best in an extremely difficult
defense. (8/8/04, Editorial by the Rocky
Mountain News.)
- New Appeal Filed For Man On Death Row
The
man sentenced to die for killing four people
at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Aurora
in 1993 is now asking a federal judge in
Denver to spare his life. In a 755-page
motion filed in U.S. District Court in
Denver, attorneys for Nathan Dunlap list
41 reasons his death sentence should be
thrown out, including that his original
defense attorneys were ineffective. The
appeal comes one month after the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to hear the case, and after
the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the conviction
and sentence for the third time. Dunlap,
now 33 and the only person on Colorado's
death row, was convicted in 1996 of first-degree
murder for the deaths of restaurant employees
Sylvia Crowell, 19, Benjamin Grant and
Colleen O'Connor, both 17, and manager
Margaret Kohlberg, 50. (2/21/08, Rocky
Mountain News)
Search the news archives of the Boulder
Daily Camera, the Denver
Post, and the Denver
Rocky Mountain News for additional
information.
For information on other prisoners, see Colorado's
Death Row.
See the Web site's News section
for more articles and information about the
death penalty.
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