Single vote gives death-penalty opponents victory in House

A plan to abolish the death penalty in Colorado and divert an estimated $4 million a year in savings to cold-case investigations and prosecutors and public defenders survived its first hurdle Tuesday by a single vote.

The measure passed the House 33-32, with the deciding vote case by Rep. Ed Vigil, D-Fort Garland, who hesitated for almost a full minute before casting his vote in favor of the bill.

"When I decided to push the button was when I made my decision," Vigil said afterward. "What I was pondering was, ‘Do we do the morally right thing or do we take a tool away from law enforcement?' Which is what I feel like we did. That was the crux."
The bill now heads to the Sentate.

Republicans ripped Democrats for pushing through a bill they said would remove a major deterrent to crime and flies in the face of what citizens want.

"I think corrections officers will be at risk, I think police officers will be at risk, I think that material witnesses in murder cases may be at risk, because there will be people with nothing to lose," said Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, referring to criminals facing life in prison.

Democrats control the House 38 to 27, so opponents needed seven Democrats, to vote against it. They only got six: Reps. Kathleen Curry, of Gunnison, Jerry Frangas, of Denver, Ed Casso, of Thornton, Sara Gagliardi, of Arvada, John Soper, of Thornton, and Karen Middleton, of Aurora. One Republican voted with the Democrats.

The lone Republican who voted for the bill, Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, often bucks his own party's positions.

"I am very, very pro-life. I believe in the sanctity of all human beings, and if I believe in all of them, then I have to believe in all of them," explained Marostica, an Army veteran. "I've seen too much killing."

His vote wasn't the surprise for Republicans that Vigil's turned out to be.

"After the vote counting came out, we'd counted 33 against it and 32 votes for it, and obviously one member flipped," Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, said of Vigil. "He had committed before the vote that he would vote no to the bill. Obviously, political pressure got to him."

Vigil denied that he had been pressured. "Those tactics don't work on me," he said.

House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, who carried the bill, said the bill was not just a moral issue but an economic one as well.

He pointed out that there are only two Coloradans on death row right now: Sir Mario Owens and Nathan Dunlap, while there are more than 1,000 unsolved murders in the state.

"We've had one death penalty, one execution in 40 years. We've had 1,435 unsolved homicides in the same amount of time.

"Where can you better use your resources?" Weissman said. "It's an easy question. Third grade math could figure this out."

The bill faces another tough fight in the Senate. A number of Democrats in the upper chamber, as in the House, support the death penalty.