Posted on 08/25/2014 2:43:49 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
Audio obtained by Complete Colorado has raised significant new issues regarding Governor John Hickenlooper’s stance on the death penalty.
In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper suggested that if he does not win reelection, he could use his executive powers to overhaul Colorado’s death row with clemency. In particular, the Governor suggested these remedies were conditional – if his opponent turned the death penalty, or the Dunlap case in particular, into a “political football.”
In the audio, the unidentified CNN interviewer asks, “But it (the death penalty) is an issue. And, you know, some of your opponents immediately announced that they were going to run on a death penalty platform, um, and in a sense, are putting themselves out there, and not that I’m thinking specifically of (Tom) Tancredo but I believe there are probably others, who are saying, ‘Elect me, and we’ll kill this guy.’ Doesn’t that feel kind of like a lynch mob? I mean in some, in some sense?”
“Well we won’t let that happen, I mean, that’s obviously, that is — does, feel that way.” Hickenlooper interrupts. ”And, you know, if that becomes a political issue, in that context within a campaign, um, obviously there’s a period of time between the election and, and the end of the year where individuals can make decisions, such as a governor can.” (Audio begins at 19:56 in the embedded clip below.)
The news was broken Saturday morning on The Craig Silverman Show, 710 KNUS, after Complete Colorado obtained the audio tape of the full CNN interview via a Colorado Open Records Act request.
Colorado needs a new Guv/
ping
Don’t forget that two representatives were removed from office and one forced to resign. Chickenpooper next?
We had a “republican” governor here in Illinois who actually did what chickenpooper is threatening to do.
Thanks, beaversmom! Hick is in trouble, IMO. So is Udall.
If this IDIOT releases any murderers,will someone please give them his address(and car-fare)to his house?Ok,I Will!!!!!!!
He isn’t saying he will commute the sentences to life, he is saying he will set them free guilt free.
But, given recent pronouncements by him that he didn’t really understand things before he acted or before he became governor, he probably doesn’t know what clemency means.
Was that not because the GOP governor was about to do some hard time himself? And he figured a little street cred would do him some good behind the walls in Joliet?
Chickenpooper isn't quite in the same position...
What’s the Dunlap case?
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_23299865/nathan-dunlap-temporary-reprieve-from-governor
http://murderpedia.org/male.D/d/dunlap-nathan.htm
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
Gov Ryan was about to go to prison for the "Licenses For Bribes" scandal. I don't recall that there was any evidence that he knew what was afoot, but it happened on his watch, and he was a Republican, so he was guilty.
The story regarding the death-row inmates is a little deeper. He didn't give them clemency. Rather, he commuted their sentences to life. This wasn't because of any anti-death-penalty belief on his part. A local law school had investigated some of the condemned prisoners' cases, and found quite a few miscarriages of justice. DNA testing (which had not been available when they were found guilty) proved that some of those on death row could not have committed the crimes.
The cops and prosecutors were shown to be either incompetent or corrupt (or both). The public lost faith in the ability of the Justice System to discern between innocent and guilty; so Ryan halted the executions.
Public comments made afterward by police and prosecutors did not help their public image. At least one prosecutor, when asked whether it bothered him that he had sent the wrong man to death row; stated, "We did our job. We convinced a jury that he was guilty".
Chilling.
Any Governor’s Mansion is easy to find.
They only like the democratic process when it gives them what they want.
This guy hinklelooper sounds like a real maroon as bugs bunny would say. Please people of the great state of Colorado get rid of him.
He didn’t say he would free them.
Also, reducing a sentence from Death to Life incarceration fits the definition of clemency.
But, given recent pronouncements by him that he didn’t really understand things before he acted or before he became governor, he probably doesn’t know what clemency means.”
Thanks for the additional background; the story behind the story.
So Hickenlooper is threatening the public if they don’t reelect him?
Once Republicans again control the office of the governor and the legislature, they need to remember this, and make it so that the governor cannot *unilaterally* commute, pardon or parole, or authorize clemency, unless it is first authorized by the state board of pardons and paroles.
This has already been done in other states that had governors who adamantly opposed the death penalty under any circumstance. So the power was taken away from them, without permission.
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