Colorado abolishes death penalty, governor commutes sentences of 3 death row inmates

Two of the men he spared are on death row for killing the son and future daughter-in-law of a current state senator.

"Commutations are typically granted to reflect evidence of extraordinary change in the offender. That is not why I am commuting these sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole," Polis said in a statement. "Rather, the commutations of these despicable and guilty individuals are consistent with the abolition of the death penalty in the State of Colorado, and consistent with the recognition that the death penalty cannot be, and never has been, administered equitably in the State of Colorado."

Polis conceded that the decision would not be popular with some families of victims.

"While I understand that some victims agree with my decision and others disagree, I hope this decision provides clarity and certainty for them moving forward," Polis said. "The decision to commute these sentences was made to reflect what is now Colorado law, and done after a thorough outreach process to the victims and their families."

Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, is one of the dissenters. Sullivan’s son, Alex Sullivan, was one of the 12 people killed by gunman James Holmes in the July 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater. Holmes is serving multiple life sentences in the massacre.

State Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, is another dissenter -- and one with a lot to lose in this particular battle.

Fields' son, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, were slain in 2005 on the orders of Robert K. Ray -- one of the death row inmates whose sentences have been commuted. According to The Denver Post, Marshall-Fields was set to testify against Ray in a separate murder trial when they were gunned down.

The gunman who shot Marshall-Fields and Wolfe, both 22, was Sir Mario Owens, who was sentenced to death alongside Ray. Owens’ sentence was also commuted on Monday.

Fields wrote on Twitter that words cannot express her "disappointment and sense of emptiness."

"The system failed my son, our family and those who served as citizen jurors," she wrote. "In a stroke of a pen, Gov. Polis hijacks justice and undermines our criminal justice system."

Carl Dubler, who served as the foreman of the jury in Ray’s trial, expressed his condolences and frustration.

"I am sorry, Rhonda. The months of work my jury did, gone in a stroke," Dubler tweeted. "And the (governor) didn't even acknowledge my request to speak with him first."

Other commenters accused Polis of not following Colorado law in enacting the repeal.

According to the Post, Republicans, and some Democrats, in the state legislature sought to have the issue put on the 2020 ballot. When the measure passed 38-27 last month in the House, three House Democrats, including Sullivan, joined Republicans in opposing the repeal.

Proponents of the repeal, who consider the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment, argued that the implementation of capital punishment is arbitrary and the decades of appeals involved in a capital case are costly to taxpayers.

Just one person has been executed in Colorado since the federal government lifted a moratorium on capital punishment in 1976, the Post said.

Colorado Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Democrat from Denver who sponsored the bill, wrote on Facebook Monday night that her "heart is filled with gratitude" that the death penalty has been abolished in the state.

"My hope is that every family whose lives have been torn apart by murder are able to find closure and peace," Gonzales wrote.

Gonzales said many perspectives were heard over the course of the debate and it has “been (her) intention at every step of the process over the past two years to treat everyone involved with dignity and respect.”

She thanked those who lent their voices to the debate.

"We heard from family members who went through the unconscionable pain and devastation of losing their loved ones, on all sides of the issue," Gonzales said. "We heard from prosecutors and defense counsel, from faith leaders, from professors, from the disability community. We heard from conservatives and from progressives.

“We heard powerful arguments presented by everyday Coloradans, put forward much more eloquently than I could ever hope to do, about why we should end this irrevocably cruel, unusual, and ghastly practice.”

In a statement to the Post, Gonzales said the move was an "important acknowledgment that every life has dignity, no matter how heinous their actions, the crimes they may have committed."

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler disagreed with Gonzales’ sentiments. He called the repeal a win for criminals.

"The decision to pass and sign the death penalty repeal bill should bring a smile to the faces of future serial killers, terrorists, cop killers, mass murderers, child killers, and those in prison who decide to kill again," Brauchler said in a statement. "We have also reduced the protections for witnesses to crime by lowering the bar for their murders. Colorado's pro-offender legislature and its current governor have signaled that those lives are worth more protection than those of their victims."

Brauchler also accused Polis of breaking the law.

"Colorado Revised Statute 16-17-102 makes clear that the governor must submit any application for commutation to the district attorney and make efforts to seek the comments of the actual prosecutors from the criminal case before approving such application," Brauchler said in his statement. "This governor has never reached out to me or any member of the prosecution team, all of whom are still in the area, for any comments, consultation, or input of any kind before rescuing these heinous, cold-blooded murderers from their earned sentences.

“I learned about the news of these historic commutations on the largest cases in Colorado from a staffer in the governor’s office only hours before it was announced.”

Brauchler pointed out the brutality that took place at the hands of the men whose lives Polis spared. In all, the three men on death row were responsible for killing seven people.

According to court records, Ray was set to stand trial in a shooting at a July 4, 2004, party that wounded Marshall-Fields and killed his friend, 20-year-old Gregory Vann. Owens was also involved in Vann’s murder, but he had not yet been identified by police.

In the weeks before his trial, Ray attempted to hire someone to kill Marshall-Fields for $10,000, but he had no takers. He determined he would eliminate the witness himself, court records show.

On June 20, 2005, exactly a week before Ray’s trial was scheduled to begin, Marshall-Fields and Wolfe were gunned down as they drove to have dinner with friends. According to court documents, Owens was the gunman.

The third man on Colorado's death row, Nathan Dunlap, was sentenced to death in 1993 for killing four people and wounding a fifth at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, the Post reported. The victims were employees closing the store for the night.

Crew members Ben Grant, 17; Sylvia Crowell, 19; and Colleen O'Connor, 17; and manager Margaret Kohlberg, 50, were killed in the massacre. Dunlap, then a 19-year-old former employee who had been fired from the restaurant, got away with $1,500 and some game tokens, the Colorado Sun reported last year.

Listen to some of the surviving family members of the Chuck E. Cheese victims speak about Nathan Dunlap below, courtesy of CNN.

Though Dunlap remains on death row, he was granted a stay by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2013. That reprieve remained in place Monday when his sentence was commuted to life.

Bobby Stephens, the sole survivor of Dunlap's rampage at Chuck E. Cheese, told the Sun last year that the debate over the death penalty brought up mixed emotions. He told the newspaper that he believes Dunlap deserves to die, but that he wants to respect the feelings of family members of his Chuck E. Cheese coworkers, not all of whom support the death penalty.

When Hickenlooper granted Dunlap an indefinite reprieve, Stephens said he and family members of the victims wrote the governor letters.

"We asked for the same thing: Put this behind us," Stephens said. "Put this to rest and either carry out the sentence or not."

He said last year that part of him would be relieved if Dunlap’s sentence was commuted to life in prison.

“At least it’s over,” he said.

"There are a few in Colorado today who will cheer the sparing of the lives of these cold-blooded murderers," Brauchler said in his statement. "For the rest of Colorado, make no mistake: We will save no money. We are not safer. We are not a better people. And the only lives spared are those who commit the ultimate acts of evil against us.

“To the families of those innocent Coloradans murdered by the men who had been on death row, I say ‘I am sorry. I tried to uphold justice for you.’ To my fellow Coloradans, I say ‘elections have consequences.’”

The Post reported that the repeal specifies the death penalty cannot be imposed for crimes committed on or after July 1. That means that an Adams County man, Dreion Dearing, still faces the death penalty if convicted of the murder of Adams County Deputy Heath Gumm.

Dearing's capital murder trial in Gumm's death began earlier this month but, as of Monday, it had been postponed for at least the next two weeks because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the newspaper reported.