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Panel votes to end state executions
Colo. attorney general, CBI testify
Herald Denver Bureau
Several people who lost family members to unsolved homicides spoke in favor of House Bill 1274, which would dedicate money from court costs in death-penalty trials to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's cold-case unit.
"We want justice for our loved ones - justice.
- Howard Morton, Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons
"We want justice for our loved ones - justice. That's what we want," said Howard Morton, who helped found Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons. His group seeks to trade "vengeance for justice."
But family members of other victims testified against it, including Melissa Petrucelli. Her mother, Margaret Kohlberg, was murdered in an Aurora restaurant in 1996. The killer, Nathan Dunlap, is one of two inmates on Colorado's death row.
"The pain of homicide victims never ends, and it chips away at our soul year after miserable year," Petrucelli said.
She said the question should be put to the state's voters.
The Senate State Affairs Committee voted on party lines to send the bill on to the Appropriations Committee.
Officials with the Department of Public Safety - which reports to Gov. Bill Ritter - testified against the bill. If it survives the Senate, Ritter would have to sign it for it to become law. Ritter brought seven death-penalty cases when he was Denver district attorney.
Colorado has executed only one prisoner in 40 years.
Ron Sloan of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said HB 1294 makes the false promise that extra money for his agency's cold-case unit will lead to more homicide convictions. "That notion, in and of itself, is patently cruel, I believe," Sloan said.
Attorney General John Suthers asked the panel to keep the death penalty.
"Colorado should retain the death penalty for one basic reason: There are heinous crimes being committed in our society for which life in prison is not an adequate response," Suthers said.
As an example, he cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Earlier, the father of one of McVeigh's victims testified in favor of the ban.
Bud Welch, who lost his 23-year-old daughter in the bombing, said prosecutors tell "the big lie" when they say victims' families will get closure once murderers are executed. All the families of McVeigh's victims who he knows did not get closure from McVeigh's death, Welch said.
Randy Steidl served 12 years on Illinois' death row until his conviction was overturned. He said the death penalty could be justified only if the justice system were 100 percent accurate and free of human error.
"An innocent man can be released from prison, but he cannot be released from the grave," Steidl said.
HB 1294 passed the House on a 33-32 vote last week. Its next hearing in the Appropriations Committee has not been scheduled.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
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