May 06, 2013 11:47 AM UTC

Hickenlooper Weighs Clemency For "Chuck E. Cheese Killer"

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

9NEWS' Blair Shiff reports:

Citing racial bias, geographic concentration, and disproportionate usage in Colorado's application of capital punishment, various influential local leaders called on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to commute Nathan Dunlap's death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A clemency petition was filed Monday by Dunlap's attorneys.

"We … urge you to grant clemency because the death penalty in Colorado is deeply flawed," states a letter to Governor Hickenlooper, signed by former judges. "These facts depict a system that acts in an arbitrary fashion, based on factors such as race and geography … Assuming that the death penalty may sometimes be appropriate, there is no principled reason for it to be applied in the circumstances of this case."

…Many of the supporters for clemency express concern in their letters that the death penalty in Colorado is not used proportionally, and it is concentrated geographically and by the profile of the prisoner, with racial bias and a bias towards younger offenders.

If we were in the position of betting today, we would lean toward thinking that convicted "Chuck E. Cheese Killer" Nathan Dunlap will be executed, if not in the time frame of the date currently set for his execution than at some inevitable point. Colorado's death penalty is in practice very sparingly applied, with only one execution actually carried out in the past 45 years. Politically, capital punishment became an issue this year after a bill to abolish it was killed with help from both Gov. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Rhonda Fields–the latter having a personal perspective on the issue, since two convicts on death row in Colorado are there for killing Field's child. After so much else accomplished, in particular gun safety, repeal of the death penalty just wasn't in the cards this year.

That experience makes one think that Hickenlooper will not stand in the way of Dunlap's execution, for a mass murder considered one of the worst in Colorado history (certainly at the time). If he does, it would mean the arguments about the death penalty's racial and geographic inequities were persuasive in this actual case where they were not in the hypothetical during the legislative debate. Politically, that would still be a very big deal.