First Colorado Sentencing Jury Under New Law
Rejects Death
During the 1980s and early 90s, Colorado juries
were not returning enough death sentences to
please prosecutors and pro-death legislators.
In 1995, lawmakers decided to have three-judge
panels make sentencing decisions. When even that
did not sufficiently increase the number of death
sentences, there was talk of changing to a single-judge
sentencing system. Before that could happen,
however, the US Supreme Court's Ring v. Arizona
decision invalidated Colorado's sentencing scheme,
essentially forcing a return to sentencing by
jury.
This past December, the new law was put
to its first test. Dante Owens, convicted of
first-degree
murder in a 1998 Aurora drug deal gone wrong,
was spared the death penalty by his sentencing
jury. While jurors agreed that Owens had participated
in the crime, they had doubts about his level
of culpability.
"In the exercise of their personal moral
judgment, they unanimously agreed that life was
the appropriate
sentence for Dante Owens," said defense
attorney David Lane.
Neither of Owens' two co-defendents
received death, either. Co-defendent Randy
Canister was
convicted in July 2002, just after Colorado's
death penalty statute had been invalidated.
A judge later ruled that Canister could not be
executed. Co-defendent Trevon Washington was
sentenced to life in August 2003, after a judge
ruled that he is mentally retarded.
