On April 20, Colorado’s House voted 33 – 32 to repeal the death penalty. The bill, which now heads to the Senate, would shift funds used to prosecute cases and maintain the death penalty to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for closing unsolved murder cases. Proponents of the bill believe the state would save close to $4 million by repealing the death penalty, and dozens of family members with unsolved murder cases testified that those funds could be better used solving cold cases. While there has been only one execution in Colorado in the past 40 years, there are currently 1,435 unsolved murders across the state. “This is a very heartening development, not only for the families of these victims whose killers have never been prosecuted, but also for all the Coloradans who live in the communities that have been terrorized by the realization that we have killers walking among us and murderers living in our neighborhoods,” said Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons. “This vote by the House sends the strong message that we will no longer take a passive approach to old, unsolved murders. Colorado now intends to be proactive in going after these killers.” Gov. Bill Ritter has not yet announced if he would sign the bill into law if it made it to his desk.
(P. Marcus, “Death penalty ban bill clears House,” Denver Daily News, April 22, 2009). See Recent Legislation and Costs.
