Colorado District Attorneys Drop One Capital Prosecution, Continue a Second, After State Abolishes Death Penalty

After ignor­ing health risks posed by lengthy court pro­ceed­ings dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and fac­ing crit­i­cism that a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion fol­low­ing the state’s abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment would amount to a polit­i­cal­ly par­ti­san waste of tax­pay­er dol­lars, pros­e­cu­tors in Adams County, Colorado have announced that they will drop the death penal­ty in a high-pro­file case involv­ing the killing of a sheriff’s deputy.

On March 30, 2020, 17^th Judicial District Attorney Dave Young filed papers in the tri­al court to with­draw pur­suit of the death penal­ty against Dreion Dearing (pic­tured). Young blamed Colorado Governor Jared Polis for the prosecution’s choice to drop the death penal­ty, say­ing the Governor’s com­mu­ta­tion of the death sen­tences of the three men on the state’s death row made con­tin­u­ing to seek the death penal­ty futile. ​“The People can­not over­come Governor Polis’ stat­ed intent to forego any death sen­tence with a stroke of his pen,” Young’s pleading said.

Colorado’s death-penal­ty abo­li­tion law applies only to cas­es in which cap­i­tal charges are brought after July 1, 2020, leav­ing open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that pros­e­cu­tors could still seek the death penal­ty in a small num­ber of pend­ing and future cas­es. In El Paso County, pros­e­cu­tors are still seek­ing the death penal­ty against Marco Garcia-Bravo in a tri­al in which jury selec­tion has been delayed until at least July 17. ​“Right now, noth­ing has changed” regard­ing the pur­suit of the death penal­ty in that case, 4^th Judicial District Attorney’s Office spokes­woman Lee Richards told the Colorado Springs Gazette.

As the Colorado sen­ate vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty on January 30 and the state House fol­lowed suit on February 26, Young insist­ed that Dearing’s case would remain a cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ing. Jury selec­tion began on March 4 despite coro­n­avirus con­cerns and oth­er court clo­sures, and Judge Mark Warner on March 9 denied a defense motion to test all empan­eled jurors for the coro­n­avirus before the tri­al began. However, on March 23, Warner reversed course and sus­pend­ed the pro­ceed­ings until at least April 6, cit­ing health con­cerns and the dif­fi­cul­ty of empan­el­ing a jury at a time in which pub­lic gath­er­ings were being limited

That same day, Governor Polis signed the repeal law and com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of Nathan Dunlap, Sir Mario Owens, and Robert Ray, clear­ing the state’s death row. Those com­mu­ta­tions, Polis said, ​“reflect what is now Colorado law … [and] are con­sis­tent with the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in the State of Colorado.”

“Everybody in the world knew that Mr. Dearing would nev­er be exe­cut­ed[,] … that was clear long ago,” said University of Colorado pro­fes­sor and Colorado death penal­ty his­to­ri­an Michael Radelet. ​”To put a new guy on death row right now, it just bogs down the appel­late court. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. I hate to be polit­i­cal, but there are three rea­sons for the death penal­ty right now. One is pol­i­tics. Two is pol­i­tics, and three is politics.”