On May 22, Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado grant­ed an indef­i­nite stay of exe­cu­tion to Nathan Dunlap, who was fac­ing exe­cu­tion in August. In his Executive Order, the gov­er­nor expressed con­cerns about the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, call­ing it flawed and inequitable. He also not­ed the nation­al trend away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, with five states recent­ly vot­ing to repeal the death penal­ty and oth­er states rarely using it. Hickenlooper stat­ed, ​“If the State of Colorado is going to under­take the respon­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing a human being, the sys­tem must oper­ate flaw­less­ly. Colorado’s sys­tem for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is not flaw­less.” The gov­er­nor under­scored that his deci­sion to grant a reprieve in this case was because of larg­er objec­tions to the death penal­ty, and he was not grant­i­ng clemen­cy to Dunlap. He con­clud­ed, ​“It is a legit­i­mate ques­tion whether we as a state should be taking lives.”

(K. Augé and L. Bartels, ​“Nathan Dunlap grant­ed ​“tem­po­rary reprieve” by gov­er­nor,” Denver Post, May 22, 2013). Read the Executive Order. See New Voices and Clemency. Colorado has 3 peo­ple on death row. The last exe­cu­tion in the state was in 1997.

Dunlap’s attor­neys issued a state­ment fol­low­ing the gov­er­nor’s order, say­ing, ​“We agree with Governor Hickenlooper’s well-rea­soned deci­sion to grant Nathan Dunlap a reprieve and indef­i­nite­ly stay his exe­cu­tion. There has been wide­spread and diverse sup­port from hun­dreds of peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions in Colorado who sup­port per­ma­nent­ly com­mut­ing Nathan Dunlap’s sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.”

Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon also recent­ly put a hold on exe­cu­tions in his state.

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