BOULDER—
State lawmakers are being asked to reconsider Colorado's death penalty. House Majority Leader, Paul Weissmann introduced a bill that has reignited the debate over capital punishment.Supporters of the bill say the death penalty costs state and local agencies about 4 million dollars per year. They want the money to be spent on cold cases. Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons says there are 1,400 unsolved murder cases in the state. He says the money currently being spent to prosecute and defend death row inmates would be set aside to fund a cold case team at the state level. Morton says, "there's 4 million dollars a year being wasted on murderers, both prosecuting and defending them. And in the last 40 years, we've executed one person. There are two people are on death row. We ask ourselves, is that worth 4 million dollars a year?"
Opponents of the bill say the death penalty is a good deterrent and is necessary to prevent some of the worst crimes. State Senator, David Schulteis, a Republican from Colorado Springs says, "I know the sense of the people and they want the death penalty and they are frustrated we don't utilize it more. Not only do we need to maintain it, we probably need to exercise it more frequently than we do in colorado."
Lawmakers will hold hearings in the next week. A similar bill failed two years ago.
