In a recent inter­view, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stat­ed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, cit­ing the views of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and the high cost of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Hickenlooper said he had sup­port­ed the death penal­ty until he learned more about it. ​“My whole life I was in favor of the death penal­ty,” he said, ​“But then you get all this infor­ma­tion: it costs 10 times, maybe 15 times more mon­ey to exe­cute some­one than to put some­one in prison for life with­out parole. There’s no deter­rence to hav­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. And I don’t know about you, but when I get new facts, I’ll change my opin­ion. I didn’t know all of this stuff.” In 2013, he grant­ed an indef­i­nite reprieve to death row inmate Nathan Dunlap, say­ing, ​“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.” Because of the gen­er­al basis for Hickenlooper’s grant of a stay, it would appear to put a hold on all exe­cu­tions while he is governor.

(E. Stokols, ​“In inter­view, Hickenlooper offers new anti-death penal­ty stance, light sup­port for Keystone,” Fox31, August 18, 2014). See New Voices and Costs.

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