A Colorado jury has returned a life sen­tence in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Dexter Lewis in the stab­bing deaths of 5 peo­ple in a Denver bar in 2012. After less than 3 hours of delib­er­a­tion, the jury deter­mined that the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors relat­ing to the killing did not out­weigh Lewis’ mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence detail­ing the exten­sive his­to­ry of abuse and neglect in his upbring­ing, includ­ing chron­ic alco­hol abuse by his moth­er while she was preg­nant and near­ly dai­ly beat­ings when he was a child. The defense also pre­sent­ed men­tal health evi­dence of the long-term effects of severe child abuse. After the ver­dict, Prosecutor Joe Morales (pic­tured, left) called the ver­dict ​“a great day for jus­tice” and said the pros­e­cu­tors ​“respect [the ver­dict] whole­heart­ed­ly.” He added that ​“if you can­not get 12 peo­ple to agree beyond a rea­son­able doubt that a per­son should lose their life for their crimes, then it should not be imposed.… No crit­i­cism [of the ver­dict] needs to come from any­one who did not sit day in and day out in that court­room. Period.” No Denver jury has sen­tenced a defen­dant to death since 1986. Colorado has had no exe­cu­tions since 1997 and is one of four states that has placed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. Governor Hickenloper has called for a statewide ​“con­ver­sa­tion” about the death penal­ty. The sen­tence comes in the wake of a string of life sen­tences imposed in oth­er high pro­file cap­i­tal cas­es after long and expensive trials.

On August 7, anoth­er Colorado jury reject­ed the death penal­ty in the six-month tri­al of James Holmes for the killings of 12 peo­ple in an Aurora movie the­atre. 9 jurors ceased attempts to per­suade 3 hold-out jurors to vote for death in that case when one of those jurors said she would vote for life because of Holmes’ seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. Weeks ear­li­er, a Kings County, Washington, jury took one hour to return a life sen­tence for anoth­er men­tal­ly ill and delu­sion­al cap­i­tal defen­dant, Christopher Monfort, in the mur­der of a Seattle police offi­cer, and in May anoth­er Kings County jury spared Joseph McEnroe in the mur­der of 6 mem­bers of his girlfriend’s family. 

(J. Steffen & M. Nussbaum, ​“Dexter Lewis gets life sen­tence in Fero’s Bar mas­sacre,“The Denver Post, August 27, 2015; ​“Denver District Attorneys react to the life sen­tence for Dexter Lewis,” Denver Post TV, August 27, 2015; Associated Press,“Denver Bar Killer Dexter Lewis Will be Sentenced to Life,” August 27, 2015.) See Life Without Parole and Mental Illness. Image from Denver Post TV.

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