Not a killing state: Is Colorado prepared for the death penalty?

The majority of Coloradans want their state to kill James Holmes. But if he receives the death penalty, the Department of Corrections may not be ready.

Convicted murderer James Holmes is now awaiting his sentence.

He faces the death penalty for his crimes, a punishment 2/3 of Coloradans believe he deserves.

But lethal injection drugs are increasingly hard to obtain. If the jury sentences Holmes to death, is Colorado actually capable of carrying it out?

Like all 31 states that still allow capital punishment, Colorado uses lethal injection as its primary means of execution. But it almost never happens: The 1997 death of Gary Lee Davis remains the state's only execution in almost 50 years, and the only time Colorado has ever performed a lethal injection. We are, in the words of death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, "not a killing state."

The Colorado Department of Corrections, tasked with performing executions, doesn't even keep drugs for the procedure on hand. Their shelf life is less than the average 10 years it takes for a death penalty appeals process.

In March of 2013, 5 months before death row inmate Nathan Dunlap was scheduled for execution, The Denver Post reported that CDOC was still struggling to acquire a crucial drug.

Tom Clements, CDOC's then-director, wrote a letter to 97 compounding pharmacies across the state in an attempt to acquire sodium thiopental, a rapid-onset anesthetic critical to the state's lethal 3-drug cocktail.

Clements sought the pharmacies' help because the drug is now nearly impossible to find ready-made. Hospira Inc, the only producer in the nation, stopped making it in 2011. The E.U. has blocked its export for use in executions. But compounding pharmacies are less than eager. In March this year, the American Pharmacists Association called upon its members to stop providing any drugs for use in executions.

In light of Clements' letter, the ACLU in 2013 submitted an open records request to CDOC asking for a copy of its execution protocol. (The agency initially didn't comply, forcing the ACLU to file a lawsuit.)

What they found was troubling. Colorado law demands lethal injection be administered with "a lethal quantity of sodium thiopental or other equally or more effective substance sufficient to cause death."

The protocol from 2011 calls for Sodium Pentothal, the name brand of sodium thiopental. But the 2013 protocol, with no change in state law, calls for "Sodium Pentothal/Pentobarbital," implying that the 2 are interchangeable despite being 2 different drugs. (When pentobarbital was used in the 2014 Oklahoma execution of Michael Wilson, he reportedly said he felt his "whole body burning.")

Colorado is not the only state scrambling for alternatives. Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah have authorized the use of the gas chamber, electrocution and the firing squad, respectively, if lethal injection drugs become unavailable. And the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that midazolam, the controversial drug linked to multiple botched or prolonged executions across the country, is constitutional for use in lethal injections.

Ultimately, the ACLU's investigation came to a halt when Gov. John Hickenlooper granted Dunlap an indefinite stay of execution. But the discrepancy between protocol and state law raises concerns about the secrecy that goes along with lethal injection.

How can the public stay informed about the death penalty when no organization will publicly admit to selling the drugs? How do we determine what drugs count as an "equally or more effective substance to cause death" without being able to properly test them?

Gov. Hickenlooper's stay of execution for Dunlap means the state, at least for now, isn't actively seeking out lethal injection drugs. His office didn't return requests for comment, but the governor has said publicly that he will not allow an execution during his term. The other 2 men on death row will not exhaust their appeals for years.

If sentenced to death, James Holmes can expect the appeals process to take 10 years or more.

By that time, Colorado's lethal injection protocol - and indeed, its stance on the death penalty - could look quite different.

Source: The Colorado Independent, July 30, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Former Florida officer who raped, murdered 11-year-old set to be executed

An execution date has been set for a former Mascotte police officer who, in May 1987, assaulted and murdered an 11-year-old girl. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for James Aren Duckett on Friday. He’s scheduled to be executed on March 31. It’ll be the state’s 5th execution this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Duckett was convicted in the murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee about a year after her death. According to officials, Duckett took the 11-year-old to a lake, where he sexually battered, strangled and drowned her.

‘Come on with it’: Arkansas inmate asks to hasten execution

A Faulkner County judge has scheduled an August hearing to determine whether a death row inmate can bypass his attorney’s advice, drop his remaining appeals, and hasten his execution. Scotty Ray Gardner, 65, is facing the death penalty for the 2016 killing of his girlfriend, Susan Heather Stubbs, in Conway. In letters sent to Circuit Judge Chuck Clawson and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Gardner said he wants to end his legal battles, writing that he is tired of prison life and skeptical he will receive a fair hearing. “It’s simple,” Gardner wrote in a September letter. “Come on with it.”

Florida executes Melvin Trotter

The execution of Melvin Trotter for the murder of 70-year-old Virgie Langford in 1986 comes as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor questions Florida's 'deeply troubling' lethal injection record. Florida has executed its second inmate of the year even as a Supreme Court justice questioned the state's “deeply troubling" record on lethal injections and how it "shrouds its executions in secrecy." Melvin Trotter, 65, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, Feb. 24, for the 1986 murder of 70-year-old Virgie Langford, a mother of 4 who was on the verge of retirement when she was stabbed to death in the corner grocery store that she owned for five decades. Trotter was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. ET.

Man convicted in 1986 murder set to become Florida's second execution of 2026

STARKE, Fla. (DPN) — A man convicted of stabbing and strangling a grocery store owner during a robbery nearly 40 years ago is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, becoming the second person executed in Florida this year. Melvin Trotter, 65, is set to receive a three-drug lethal injection beginning at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 killing of Virgie Langford, 70, who owned Langford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto, in southwest Florida's Manatee County.

India | POCSO Court awards death penalty to UP couple for sexual exploitation of 33 children

A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former Junior Engineer (JE) of the Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys — some as young as three — over a decade, officials said. The POCSO court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” and held Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati guilty of systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020 and producing child sexual abuse material. Convicting the duo under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the court sentenced them to death for offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using a child for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, and abetment and criminal conspiracy, they said.

North Carolina | DA won't seek death penalty against woman accused of poisoning family

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (DPN) — Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against a Western North Carolina entrepreneur accused of poisoning her family during a Thanksgiving dinner and killing a man nearly two decades ago. During a mandatory Rule 24 hearing Thursday in Henderson County Superior Court, Assistant District Attorney John Douglas Mundy announced that the state will proceed with the case against Gudrun Linda Jean Casper-Leinenkugel, 52, as a non-capital matter. The decision removes the possibility of an execution, meaning the maximum penalty Casper-Leinenkugel now faces is life in prison without parole.

Oklahoma Ends Indefinite Death Row Solitary Confinement

Every year, thousands of prisoners in the U.S. are placed in solitary confinement, where they endure isolation, abuse, and mental suffering . This practice might soon become rarer for some inmates in Oklahoma, thanks to the efforts of activists in the state. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma announced that the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester had ended the practice of indefinite solitary confinement for "the vast majority" of death row prisoners.

Twenty Years Since the Last Scheduled Execution in California and a Focus on the Participation of Physicians in Executions

February 21, 2006, a California court’s decision effectively halted the planned execution of Michael Angelo Morales, marking the start of California’s 20-year moratorium on execution scheduling and throwing into the spotlight the tension between physician participation in executions and their pledge to show “ the utmost respect for life .” " The events surrounding Morales’s impending fate brought to the surface the long-running schism between law and medicine, raising the question of whether any beneficial connection between the professions ever existed in the execution context. History shows it seldom did. Decades of botched executions prove it. " — Professor Deborah Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty

Chinese courts conclude trials of 2 criminal gangs from northern Myanmar, 16 sentenced to death

Chinese courts have concluded the trials of 2 major criminal groups based in northern Myanmar involved in telecom and online fraud, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Thursday. At a press conference held by the SPC, it was revealed that by the end of 2025, courts across the country had concluded first-instance trials of over 27,000 cases related to telecom fraud operations in northern Myanmar, with more than 41,000 returned suspects sentenced. Notably, among the trials of the so-called "4 major families" criminal gangs -- which had drawn widespread domestic and international attention -- those of the Ming and Bai groups have completed all judicial proceedings.

Florida | Governor DeSantis signs death warrant in 2008 murder case

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Michael L. King, setting an execution date of March 17, 2026, at 6 p.m. King was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2008 kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of Denise Amber Lee, a 21-year-old North Port mother. On January 17, 2008, Michael Lee King abducted 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee from her North Port home by forcing her into his green Chevrolet Camaro. He drove her around while she was bound, including to his cousin's house to borrow tools like a shovel. King took her to his home, where he sexually battered her, then placed her in the backseat of his car. Later that evening, he drove to a remote area, shot her in the face, and buried her nude body in a shallow grave. Her remains were discovered two days later. During the crime, multiple 9-1-1 calls were made, but communication breakdowns between emergency dispatch centers delayed the response. The case drew national attention and prompted w...

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog