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California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

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California is transferring everyone on death row at San Quentin prison to other places, as it tries to reinvent the state's most notorious facility as a rehabilitation centre. Many in this group will now have new freedoms. But they are also asking why they've been excluded from the reform - and whether they'll be safe in new prisons. Keith Doolin still remembers the day in 2019 when workers came to dismantle one of the United States' most infamous death chambers.

A killer's execution could hinge on a Colorado election

With a signature on a piece of paper, convicted quadruple murderer Nathan Dunlap's life was spared.

For now.

A year after Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed that "temporary reprieve," Dunlap's sentence still has not been carried out. That's painful for many of the loved ones of the four restaurant workers Dunlap shot to death in 1993. It also upsets the sole survivor of the shooting, Bobby Stephens.

"It's not fair," Stephens told KRDO TV.

Precedent on temporary reprieves is murky. No one knows for sure when the reprieve may be lifted, and Colorado hasn't executed anyone since 1997. But if Hickenlooper, a Democrat, loses his re-election bid in November, the legal landscape for Dunlap could change dramatically.

Dunlap's attack inside a Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurant more than 20 years ago sparked a wave of anger reflected on local news broadcasts. Prosecutors said Dunlap was seeking revenge after being fired from his job there as a cook. He entered the restaurant, hid in a restroom, and emerged after closing, prosecutors said. He then shot Sylvia Crowell, 19; Colleen O'Connor, 17; Ben Grant, 17; and Marge Kohlberg, 50, who was the mother of 2 children.

Stephens, 20, who also worked there, survived. After Dunlap shot him in the face, he played dead until the killer fled the building.

Unanimous death sentence

A high-profile trial provoked a raging debate about how society should best deal with those who commit heinous crimes.

Dunlap's jury delivered its verdict in 1996, convicting him on 4 counts of murder and unanimously sentencing him to death.

During years of appeals that followed, prison doctors officially diagnosed Dunlap with bipolar disorder, CNN's "Death Row Stories" reported. Dunlap's attorneys appealed, claiming his mental health wasn't properly taken into account during his trial.

Dunlap apologized to Stephens in a letter, saying "he was sorry for what he'd done to me," Stephens told KRDO TV. But Stephens said he doubted his would-be killer's goodwill.

When the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Dunlap's final appeal, he and his attorneys took their plea for a stay to Hickenlooper.

"Because of that and the horrible things I did, I don't feel I have the right to ask for clemency," Dunlap wrote in a letter to the governor, reportedly saying,"I'd like to spare my family and friends from the same pain that I caused the victims' families and Bobby Stephens and his family and friends."

Rather than give Dunlap clemency, the governor issued a "temporary reprieve," explaining that his decision was made "not out of compassion or sympathy," but because there "is a legitimate question whether we as a state should be taking lives." "Colorado's system for capital punishment is not flawless," Hickenlooper wrote in his executive order.

'Mob justice'

The governor's decision reignited the years-old Dunlap debate.

The mother of victim Colleen O'Connor, Jodie McNally-Damore, told "Death Row Stories" she's hoping Dunlap will avoid execution. "I think that he deserves to stay exactly in the hole that he's in, and let him suffer and think about what he did. Let him rot."

Bob Crowell, father of victim Sylvia Crowell, told KCNC TV that the governor's decision resulted in backdoor clemency.

Hickenlooper's Republican challenger, former Rep. Bob Beauprez, told The Associated Press that the governor's reprieve for Dunlap showed "an unwillingness to even make the tough call."

The governor's temporary reprieve has no time limit, so theoretically, as long as Hickenlooper remains in office, he can continue to block Dunlap's execution. But a new governor could end the reprieve, clearing the way for Dunlap to die by lethal injection.

In a way, Dunlap's fate rests in the hands of Colorado voters. Critics say that amounts to mob justice.

The governor issued Dunlap a "temporary reprieve," putting his execution on hold indefinitely.

Dunlap's prosecutor, District Attorney George Brauchler, told "Death Row Stories," "There's one person in the state of Colorado who is more interested than the governor being re-elected than even the governor - and that's Nathan Dunlap."

This isn't Aurora's only high profile death penalty case involving mental health and a gunman. James Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 charges surrounding a movie theater shooting in 2012 that left 12 people dead. His trial is set to begin December 8. Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty.

A complicated system

Dunlap's case is one of several "Death Row Stories" that illustrate America's complicated capital punishment system.

Some of them involve inmates who faced possible execution until higher courts stepped in. Convicted of murder, Edward Lee Elmore spent 30 years behind bars in South Carolina despite seemingly overwhelming evidence that he was innocent.

In perhaps the most bizarre case of the series, former Army Master Sgt. Tim Hennis awaits execution on the U.S. military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for a triple murder in which he was convicted, then acquitted and then convicted again. "Tim Hennis is the only person in United States history who's been tried for his life 3 times after guilty and not guilty verdicts," said Scott Whisnant, whose book "Innocent Victims" was made into a 1996 TV movie. Despite Hennis' ultimate conviction, crime scene evidence still sheds doubt on the verdict, including still unidentified DNA which was found under a victim's fingernails.

Source: CNN, July 31, 2014

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