Reviewing the Colorado Legislative Special Session
-- By Denise Madden
As a result of the U.S Supreme Court's recent decision on Ring v. Arizona, Colorado found itself in the possible situation of not having a constitutional death penalty law. Three of the five men currently on death row in Colorado were sentenced by a three judge panel. As a result of the Supreme Court decision, there was a high probability that those three sentences could and would be challenged in a court of law as unconstitutional. In addition, several capital murder cases that were currently being tried under the three judge sentencing law were also brought into question. The Governor of Colorado, at the urging of the Colorado Attorney General and several district attorneys, called a special legislative session to draft and pass a new and constitutional death penalty bill.
In an attempt to focus on the national trend toward moratorium and abolition legislation on the death penalty, a Colorado coalition made up of lawyers, religious leaders, citizens and murder victims' family members organized to support abolition legislation. In addition, this coalition publicly opposed legislation that would have allowed for a super-majority (non-unanimous) jury decision in sentencing capital murder cases.
The coalition organized a speakers bureau to testify in house and senate judicial committee hearings and a press conference held in the press conference room at the State Capitol. Speakers included Mr. Bud Welch, father of Oklahoma City bombing victim Julie Welch; Mr. William Nieves, a former death row inmate who spent 8 years in prison for a crime he did not commit; several Colorado Public Defenders, including former prosecutors; a lobbyist and representative of the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver; and Senator Pat Pascoe and Representative Rosemary Marshall, who introduced abolition legislation. Organizations sponsoring the press conference included Coloradans Against the Death Penalty, American Civil Liberties Union, American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Committee, and the Archdiocese of Denver.
Each of the speakers presented compelling viewpoints from their individual experiences, as well as national data on why the death penalty should be abolished. In spite of all the compelling testimony, the Colorado legislators killed all proposed bills in committee hearings, except the Governor-backed return to a unanimous jury sentencing bill. Even though Colorado now has a death penalty law again, the many organizations and individuals who worked to get abolition legislation introduced feel that there is still hope for revisiting the discussion when the regular Colorado legislative session begins again in January.
