Colorado Death Penalty Watch

State Sen. Morgan Carroll (D-Aurora) and State Rep. Paul Weissmann (D-Louiseville) have written an interesting commentary regarding the possible repeal of the Colorado death penalty. While they dismiss moral reasoning as being not very helpful to the present debate, they advance two pragmatic arguments. For example, they note that Colorado is a defacto no-death penalty state, having only executed one person in the last forty years. But during that same time period there have been 1,435 unsolved murders in the state. Yet, Colorado spends millions of dollars each year on legal expenses related to the death penalty that could be better spent on putting murderers behind bars.

A secondary argument is that the death penalty is irreversable. In other words, if someone is wrongfully convicted and incarcerated, he can always be released later if he is exonerated. But if that person is wrongfully executed, then there is no way to bring him back to life. While there are no known cases in Colorado where somebody has been wrongfully sentenced to death, this has been a problem in other states and at least 130 persons have been exonerated from the death penalty after it was later found they were not guilty. As Carroll and Weissmann point out, there should be a zero margin of error when it comes to sentencing someone to death.

While I differ from Carroll and Weissmann regarding the weight that should be given to moral arguments in evaluating the death penalty, I think both of their arguments should be given serious consideration by all Coloradoans when this issue is raised again in the next legislative session.

Reflections on Denver's Cinco de Mayo Celebrations

Cinco de Mayo celebrations were observed in Denver this past weekend, serving as a reminder of the large influx of Hispanic immigrants into the Denver area and the state of Colorado during the past two decades.

When I was growing up in Denver, I don't recall being aware of the Hispanic community here, though certainly there must have been one. After going away to college and spending nearly six years in the Hispanic Caribbean, I returned home to attend seminary and discovered a booming Spanish-speaking immigrant population. The area around my grandmother's house in north Denver, near the old Lakeside Mall--which was largely Anglo during the time I was growing up--had become predominantly Hispanic. Indeed, a shopping trip to the Lakeside Mall in Denver was not a whole lot different than a shopping trip to the Mayagüez Mall in Puerto Rico.

My awareness of Denver's Hispanic community was heightened during this time, in part, due to my wife's job as a bilingual substitute teacher in the Denver Public Schools and also through my interaction with Spanish-speaking clients at Curtis Park Community Center.

Following my graduation from seminary, we spent another four years in the Caribbean and then returned home to find that the Hispanic community had begun to extend far into the Denver suburbs. It was not uncommon to hear Spanish being spoken in places like Arvada, Westminster or Thornton in the north suburbs (or Aurora in the south suburbs) and even where Spanish is not heard it can be seen on the storefronts of carnicerias and floristas in what used to be predominantly Anglo areas. Interestingly, a recent article in the Denver Post suggested that while the City and County of Denver is becoming increasingly whiter, the Denver suburbs are becoming more culturally and racially diverse, making the Denver suburbs some of the most integrated neighborhoods in the United States. Certainly, this resonates with my own observations of the changes that have taken place over the past two decades.

Cross-culturally speaking, it is an exciting time to be living in Denver. And last weekend's Cinco de Mayo celebrations were but one of many reminders of that fact.

Colorado Death Penalty Watch

Sadly, the Colorado Senate has voted down a bill to repeal the death penalty.

Colorado Death Penalty Watch

It looks like there might not be enough momentum to push the current legislation through the Colorado Senate. We should know the outcome by tomorrow.

Colorado Death Penalty Watch

Looks like the Denver Post published my letter to the editor along with two others on this topic.

Colorado House Votes Down Death Penalty

Anti-death penalty legislation barely squeezed through the Colorado House yesterday, passing by just one vote. It will still have to get through the Senate and Gov. Ritter's office before it can become law.

If the bill passes in the Senate, it is unclear as to whether Gov. Ritter will be receptive or not. As a former DA, he has typically been supportive of local prosecutors and they are in favor of keeping the death penalty. On the other hand, Ritter is a devout Roman Catholic (and even did missionary work for a couple of years in Africa) and is one of the rare elected Democrats to adhere to a pro-life position on abortion. Thus, he might well adhere to Catholic seemless-garment of life ethic, which advocates for the preservation of life "from conception until natural death."

On a related note, Gov. Bill Richardson of NM--also a devout Catholic--recently signed off on similar legislation in New Mexico so it will be interesting to see what parallels, if any, take place here in Colorado.

That being said, I was pleased to learn that Colorado has only executed one person since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Hopefully, it will also be our last.