The District Attorney (“DA”) in the 2nd Judicial District of Colorado (Denver) decided to seek the death penalty after a gruesome crime scene at a Denver area bar. Dexter Lewis and several accomplices are accused of stabbing five people to death and setting the bar ablaze. Dexter Lewis now faces death row if convicted. Interestingly, the Denver DA has not sought the death penalty in another case since 1999. An article discussing the crime and the DA’s decision to seek the death penalty can be found here.
This case marks the first death penalty case brought in Denver in well over a decade and now joins the Aurora Movie Theater Shooting case for #2 Colorado death penalty case of the year. Do these cases suggest that it is somewhat unusual to adjudicate a death penalty case locally, or do we preserve the death penalty for the worst cases that come along every once in a while?
What is going on in Denver?
So why have there been so few death penalty cases in Denver? Some question whether a jury will go for the death penalty in Denver. Perhaps that is part of the reason why death penalty cases are far and few between. Of course, some jurisdictions in Colorado seek the death penalty more often than Denver. Surely, demographics play some part in these decisions. Not only the jury makes the decisions; the prosecution has a difficult determination to make. In a typical death penalty case, the prosecutor would weigh aggravating factors against mitigating factors in determining whether to pursue the death penalty. Anyone interested can review the statutory aggravating and mitigating factors by reviewing C.R.S. 18-1.3-1201 (2012).
Here is a quick look at some death penalty statistics for Colorado:
According to the folks at www.deathpenltyinfo.org, Colorado is home to a total of four death row inmates, including Nathan Dunlap. Governor John Hickenlooper granted Mr. Dunlap temporary stay for execution proceedings originally scheduled for the end of this month. Before this case, Gary White was the last individual to be executed in Colorado in 1997. The last time a Denver jury sentenced a person to death was in 1986. Lately, Colorado has gone years without seeking the death penalty and other years with no more than one or two death penalty cases.
Many factors Could Be at Play
Is it possible that the death penalty light is flickering out? Is the status quo just fine? Perhaps prosecutors cannot justify many cases to be punishable by death sentence because of the aggravating/mitigating factors. Maybe juries are less likely to sentence a person to death so prosecutors do not ask for it often? Maybe death penalty cases are too expensive and complex to adjudicate?
Let us know what you think:
University of Denver Criminal Law Review 
I find it interesting that there is a different set of criminal procedures the courts must follow if they are seeking the death penalty. Why is that?
Different jurisdictions have different court rules that they mandate. There are also many constitutional protections offered to a defendant in a death penalty case. This increases the procedural burdens on the courts.
I feel that it is purely a community sponsored punishment. What I mean by that is that without the support of the community (obviously), the punishment never fits the crime. The uproar caused by someone shooting up a theatre is such because it is something everyone participates in. We all go to movies, but we don’t all live in a high crime rate area. A gang shootout that leaves two passersby dead doesn’t discourage us. But now people are scared because something deemed safe isn’t such … a movie theatre. Well, at least people came to that realization.
When society realizes the dangers in everything they do, the death penalty will be a long forgotten punishment. However, as long as the community is newly scared from unrealized threats, new crimes spur new attention to the death penalty.
My two bits.