Hickenlooper now opposed to capital punishment . . .

"My whole life I was in favor of the death penalty,” Hickenlooper told host Eli Stokols. “When Nathan Dunlap was being tried, it was a couple years after we opened the Wynkoop [Brewery] and it was like a family. We all watched it on TV. Everyone but one person I think felt he should be executed without question.

“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 deterrents 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. There might be legitimate reasons why the U.S. — there’s not a single country in Europe or South America or Mexico or Israel or Australia — none of these countries support the death penalty any more, and there are good reasons for it.”
kdvr.com/2014/08/18/in-interview-hickenl...upport-for-keystone/

Here's what I don't get. These are straight boilerplate talking points from those opposed to capital punishment for the better part of at least the last 40 years. Are we really supposed to believe that Hickenlooper is only now finding out about these things? Does he really think that the citizens of Colorado are so dimwitted that there's a chance this nonsense will be believed? These are not "new facts" to anyone over the age of say 20, are they?

Since Lickenpooper lies about everything else, why not lie about this as well?

Interesting rationalization; keeping a criminal in jail doesn't cost as much as executing them therefore it's fiscally responsible to keep the prisons full of criminals regardless of the crimes they have committed. Then again, since when did politicians pay any attention right and wrong? I doubt very many politicians have a working moral compass these days, it's all about getting elected and staying in office no matter what they have to say or do.

Since when did politicians pay any attention to costs.

From the Governor's statement his opposition to the Death Penalty is solely one of expense.
"Solitary confinement units cost more to build than the average prison and cost more per inmates per year than general population inmates. Nationally, it has been estimated that the average cost of a year in solitary costs taxpayers $75,000."
These are California costs. Given that Dunlap has been in jail since 1993 (21 yrs) an expense of about $1.5 million has been incurred whether he was sentenced to life in prison or death. The expense of the trial is driven by the opponents of the Death Penalty in their attempts to avoid the death penalty for their clients. As an aside their legal fees are paid by the taxpayers. Perhaps another reason for the drawn out process.
Be prepared for a reprise of the Dunlap scenario with the upcoming Holmes trial.
In both cases there is NO question as to what either Dunlap or Holmes did. Hopefully Gov. Hickenlooper will not be in office and render a similar stay for Holmes.

"I didn’t know all of this stuff." That's the statement that frogs me. Sort of like he knew nothing about the gun control bills he was signing, he was just taking his staff's word for the validity of the bills.

That's two "I didn't know" kinds of statements before this next election. Maybe his staff are all closet conservatives, trying to make him look foolish?

Personally I am surprised the Governor would make a bold statement like this to piss off voters right before a close election.

But funny to hear him go Obama "I didn't know."

It seems to me that both Hickenlooper and Obama need to have information put on their desk or televised so that they can learn what is going on.

ramage wrote: Be prepared for a reprise of the Dunlap scenario with the upcoming Holmes trial.
In both cases there is NO question as to what either Dunlap or Holmes did. Hopefully Gov. Hickenlooper will not be in office and render a similar stay for Holmes.

Isn't that in essence what his is promising to do? Now, granted, there is no scenario under which the Aurora Theater murderer is going to have exhausted all of his appeals before Hickenlooper is out of office even if he is re-elected this fall, but hasn't our current governor as much as said that there will be no executions while he is governor? Neither, it appears, is his newly found opposition so strong that it will result in a grant of clemency to the 3 current death row residents, but one never knows until the last day in office what grants of pardon and clemency an outgoing executive will issue.

And now we are learning of a CNN interview that it took a FOIA request to get from the governor's office in which Hickenlooper hints that he may be willing to grant clemency for Dunlap before his last day in office if he is defeated. The spin from the spokesperson is that the Hickster was just responding to a hypothetical question with a hypothetical response and that Hickenlooper's original intention to let Dunlap be the problem of the next governor still stands, but do you think that, taking the governor at his word, a recent convert to opposition to all capital punishment is really going to leave office without granting clemency to anyone and everyone on death row?