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 This was two years ago, and Arapahoe County District Attorney
George Brauchler was not talking about James Holmes, who last week
was found guilty on all counts by a jury for fatally shooting 12
people and wounding 70 at a midnight premiere of a Batman film in
July 2012.
At the time, Brauchler was responding to Governor John
Hickenlooper's decision to grant a temporary reprieve in an earlier
Denver-area mass killing. That case sheds light on the political
sensitivities surrounding the ultimate punishment in Colorado.
On Wednesday, the jury which convicted Holmes on 165 counts of
first-degree murder, attempted murder, and explosives charges begin
the penalty phase of the trial. After hearing more weeks of
testimony, they will decide if the California native is to be
executed by lethal injection, or serve life in prison with no
possibility of parole.
Colorado has executed just one inmate in nearly 50 years. Still, a
Denver Post poll last year showed 63 percent of state residents
surveyed support the death penalty. In the case of Holmes, a
separate poll by the newspaper this week showed an overwhelming 70
percent favored execution for the former neuroscience graduate
student. That poll had received more than 5,800 votes by Tuesday
afternoon.
 Two years ago, Brauchler called his news conference at the state
Capitol to denounce Hickenlooper's granting of a so-called
"temporary reprieve" to the state's longest-serving death row
inmate. Nathan Dunlap was convicted in 1996 of killing four workers
at a pizza restaurant where he had recently been fired.
The temporary reprieve meant the governor's successor could
reinstate Dunlap's death sentence, and the prosecutor decried the
decision as indecisive, and "clemency light."
"You hear frustration and anger in my voice because those victims
that have waited patiently for justice for 20 years will now wait
for years more," Brauchler told reporters at the time.
CORRECTIONS OFFICER KILLED
In addition to Dunlap there are two other convicted murderers on
Colorado's death row. All three African-American men were prosecuted
by the same Arapahoe County District Attorney's office, and all
attended the same suburban Denver high school.
But that is only part of the state's story with the death penalty.
At least four Colorado death sentences were overturned after the U.S
Supreme Court ruled only juries could condemn an inmate to death.
The ruling said laws in Colorado and other states were
unconstitutional because they let judges impose the death sentence.
Another inmate's death sentence was commuted to life after it was
learned jurors consulted a Bible during deliberations.
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In another high-profile recent case, prosecutors sought the death
penalty for Edward Montour, an inmate who was already serving a life
sentence for killing his 11-week-old daughter. Montour beat
corrections officer Eric Autobee to death with a ladle in a prison
kitchen in 2002.
Acting as his own lawyer, Montour pleaded guilty to first-degree
murder and was sentenced to death by a judge. The sentence was one
of those overturned by the Supreme Court ruling against
judge-imposed death sentences.
The case landed back in the district attorney's office, and
Brauchler vowed to try Montour again and seek the death penalty.
But the saga took an unexpected twist when the victim's father,
Robert Autobee, a former corrections officer, went public with his
opposition to the execution of his son's killer.
Autobee, 60, launched a campaign against the death penalty and was
soon embroiled in a war of words with Brauchler, who filed a motion
seeking to have Autobee barred from testifying at Montour's trial.
And the case then took a further turn last year when Montour's new
lawyers uncovered evidence that he may have been unjustly convicted
in his daughter's death. The infant may have suffered from a medical
condition, the lawyers said, and her father may not have inflicted
her injuries.
Brauchler relented, and allowed Montour to plead guilty to killing
the prison guard in exchange for a life sentence.
Autobee has since attended parts of the movie massacre trial, and
one day sat with Holmes' parents, Arlene and Bob. Autobee said the
gunman's mother contacted him after she read about his campaign to
end the death penalty.
"I could feel their pain, and decided that if I'm going to be
against the death penalty, I need to be visible," Autobee told
Reuters by telephone.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman and Daniel Wallis; Editing by David
Gregorio)
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