Hickenlooper Weighs Clemency For "Chuck E. Cheese Killer"

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by: Colorado Pols

9NEWS' Blair Shiff reports:

Citing racial bias, geographic concentration, and disproportionate usage in Colorado's application of capital punishment, various influential local leaders called on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to commute Nathan Dunlap's death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A clemency petition was filed Monday by Dunlap's attorneys.

"We … urge you to grant clemency because the death penalty in Colorado is deeply flawed," states a letter to Governor Hickenlooper, signed by former judges. "These facts depict a system that acts in an arbitrary fashion, based on factors such as race and geography … Assuming that the death penalty may sometimes be appropriate, there is no principled reason for it to be applied in the circumstances of this case."

…Many of the supporters for clemency express concern in their letters that the death penalty in Colorado is not used proportionally, and it is concentrated geographically and by the profile of the prisoner, with racial bias and a bias towards younger offenders.

If we were in the position of betting today, we would lean toward thinking that convicted "Chuck E. Cheese Killer" Nathan Dunlap will be executed, if not in the time frame of the date currently set for his execution than at some inevitable point. Colorado's death penalty is in practice very sparingly applied, with only one execution actually carried out in the past 45 years. Politically, capital punishment became an issue this year after a bill to abolish it was killed with help from both Gov. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Rhonda Fields–the latter having a personal perspective on the issue, since two convicts on death row in Colorado are there for killing Field's child. After so much else accomplished, in particular gun safety, repeal of the death penalty just wasn't in the cards this year.

That experience makes one think that Hickenlooper will not stand in the way of Dunlap's execution, for a mass murder considered one of the worst in Colorado history (certainly at the time). If he does, it would mean the arguments about the death penalty's racial and geographic inequities were persuasive in this actual case where they were not in the hypothetical during the legislative debate. Politically, that would still be a very big deal.

14 thoughts on “Hickenlooper Weighs Clemency For “Chuck E. Cheese Killer””

ArapaGOP says:

May 6, 2013 at 3:01 pm

I don't know. Hick's staff is upset abotu executing the mass murderer. I predict Hick will give in to the touchy feely left.

If he doesn't I'll commend him, even if that means Colorado Pols agrees with Greg Brophy.

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1. davebarnes says:
  
  May 6, 2013 at 3:42 pm
  
  "touchy feely left." does not describe me.
  
  I am really torn about the death penalty.
  
  On one hand, we KNOW Nathan Dunlap is guilty and the public wants vengance.
  
  On the other hand, many states have executed and will execute innocent men.
  
  Killing somone does seem barbaric. But, so does solitary confinement as it drives most inmates insane.
  
  Then, there are the geopolitical issues at the nation-state level.
  
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  1. BlueCat says:
    
    May 6, 2013 at 5:00 pm
    
    ArapGooof just gets the general anti-lefty spin from GOParty central casting for the generic Dem. Colorado Dems tend to be what used to be called moderate before the right managed to rhetorically move the center as far right as you can go without hitting wacko territory. Now you're "moderate" if you stop short of thinking that Obama was born in Kenya, hates white people like his mom and grandparents and wants to take away our guns and put us in re-education camps.
    
    It's pretty common for Colorado Dems to be for the death penalty, own guns, all that supposedly Republican only stuff. Personally, I'm fine with joining the rest of the civilized world and ending death as a state institution. I know many Colorado Dems whom I respect who don't agree with me.
    
    For me, I just don't think we, as a society, should be assigning people to be executioners. I'm not a pacifist but you can't have executions or torture without executioners and torturers. Who wants their children to grow up to be either? I don't think we should be asking anyone's children to do so. I also don't think anyone in the medical profession should have any direct or undirect role in executing or torturing people. That includes force feeding. I doubt ArapGoof spends any time being thoughtful, much less torn, about anything.
    
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  2. Voyageur says:
    
    May 6, 2013 at 6:37 pm
    
    There is no evidence that any state has executed an innocent man in the post Furman v. Georgia era, though all too many racially motivated cases occurred before that decision. There have been a couple sent to death row but cleared, but I've never seen any serious evidence that an innocent man was executed. It did make fodder for a good John Grisham book, though.
    
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    1. Gray in Mountains says:
      
      May 6, 2013 at 7:37 pm
      
      I've never seen evidence of the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Killing people to show that killing people is wrong does not seem to work. I do think the death penalty would be a great deterrent for check fraud, maybe foreclosure fraud and the like but I am sure, I hope, that would be considered cruel and inhuman,
      
      I read a couple of months ago that when Chaput was here he had Hick over for dinner and this came up. Hick reportedly said something like "I'm kind of an eye for an eye guy". Chaput pointed out to him that the death penalty is not counseled anywhere in the New Testament.
      
      I also remember that Tom Clements was opposed to the death penalty. If Hick and he had more than passing conversation about that it may weigh also on his decision.
      
      I'm neither going to hold my breath nor grieve for Dunlap. There is no doubt of his guilt, IMO. I have long agreed with BC about the impact this must have on the state killers and I have read of executioner's accounts both where they no longer favored it and those who did not seem to have let it bother them
      
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    2. Gray in Mountains says:
      
      May 6, 2013 at 7:41 pm
      
      a couple of years ago TX killed a guy convicted of murder by arson. Arson investigators now say that it did not happen the way the state's team said it happened.
      
      If killing people was a valuable deterrent one could expect that by now neither TX nor FL would have people committing murder.
      
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    3. Phoenix Rising says:
      
      May 6, 2013 at 7:46 pm
      
      Here's an article that might have you second-guessing that post…
      
      http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/yes-america-we-have-executed-an-innocent-man/257106/
      
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    4. DaftPunk says:
      
      May 6, 2013 at 8:10 pm
      
      Surely you've heard of Cameron Todd Willingham?
      
      You can't pull that "Shirley" crap you did the last time I posted this link. Such troll worthy certainty requires a challenge on the facts: Either tell me why you find this article unpersuasive or concede that innocents have been executed.
      
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2. ClubTwitty says:
  
  May 6, 2013 at 4:38 pm
  
  Give in to the touchy feely left? So, what is your sense on how Gandhi would view this matter? I could have sworn you were just praising him for his GOP leanings…
  
  What a complete dumbass you continually prove yourself to be, IMO.
  
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  1. BlueCat says:
    
    May 6, 2013 at 7:23 pm
    
    Well I've seen some pretty pursuasive cases for innocents having been executed in the past two decades. There are plenty of links to be found if anyone wants to look. But that's not my reason for being willing to see the death penalty relegated to the past.
    
    The act requires actors and I think it's best that we, both as individuals and as a society, be neither executioners nor torturers. I especially think it's wrong for medical professionals to participate in any way in execution or torture. Even if the guilty party deserves nothing better. And it certainly doesn't put our country in very good company.
    
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    1. BlueCat says:
      
      May 6, 2013 at 7:25 pm
      
      Oops. Meant this for Voyageur, repecting his views on the death penalty but not quite being able to climb on board.
      
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3. JeffcoBlue says:
  
  May 6, 2013 at 10:25 pm
  
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GalapagoLarry says:

May 6, 2013 at 9:06 pm

The death penalty is barbaric, useless, expensive and destructive to the moral underpinnings of our ~~civilization~~ society, and I oppose it. Period. But we discussed this previously, so no need to rehash it now.

This particular case is especially troubling for me. Some time ago I read an exaustive history of the case (at a site called ?Murderpedia? or some such): The defense lawyer called no witnesses on Dunlap's behalf. None. This in spite of his history of mental illness and a gruesome childhood. His mother, also with a history of mental illness, was a hostile witness called by the prosecution, which threw everything at its disposal at him (There were high pressure political reasons to do so at the time). The entire trial was stacked against him. At the very least he should be granted clemency; a retrial would be more just.

Did he kill those kids? It's right there on the tapes. But should we kill him in revenge? No. And no. And no.

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1. GalapagoLarry says:
  
  May 6, 2013 at 9:16 pm
  
  To repeat: No.
  
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