Colorado: Hickenlooper strikes major blow to death penalty

Denver, Colorado

In Colorado, a moderate Governor temporarily halts an execution, raising huge questions about capital punishment

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is known for a lot of things – his cheery nature, his self-promoted “quirkiness,” his beer-brewing background, his loyalty to his oil and gas donors – but he is not known for being a particularly courageous conviction politician. After all, much of the high-profile change that has happened in Colorado has come not from his strong leadership, but from the Democratic-controlled legislature forcing his hand.

But in a stunning announcement today, Hickenlooper displayed a burst of genuine courage rarely seen anywhere in politics, much less in Colorado’s ultra-cautious Democratic Party culture. Facing the decision of whether to execute convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap for his role in 1993′s infamous Chuck E. Cheese killings, Hickenlooper used a temporary reprieve order for Dunlap to raise huge questions surrounding the death penalty itself.

Specifically, unlike the few pro-death-penalty-reform governors from other states who have cited fears that the capital punishment may be executing wrongly convicted citizens, Hickenlooper halted the Dunlap execution by making a larger critique of the entire capital punishment system. Saying the “question is about the use of the death penalty itself, and not about (Dunlap),” the governor cited “information that exposes an inequitable system” to argue more broadly that “it is a legitimate question whether we as a state should be taking lives.”

Hickenlooper’s criticism of the death penalty is similar to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s recent (and laudable) critique. However, it’s arguably much bigger political news because the Colorado governor doesn’t represent a blue state. Instead, he is a purple-state politician (with rumored national political ambitions) from the “hang ‘em high” Rocky Mountain West. That context means such an expansive criticism of the whole institution of the death penalty potentially prompts a discussion not merely of one case, but of the whole system.

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Source: Salon, May 22, 2013)

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