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Colorado House of Representatives Resumes Death Penalty Debate

Tony Eitzel

State lawmakers resume a debate this week on a bill to end the death penalty. As KDNK’s Scott Franz reports, talks in the House will likely be more heated than they were in the Senate..

Republican Dave Williams of Colorado Springs says he’ll try to filibuster the bill when it likely reaches the House floor for a final vote. He thinks the decision should be up to voters, and not the legislature. Supporters say the death penalty is costly and fails to deter violent crime.

And Democrats – along with the support of at least three Republicans – are expected to use their majority to repeal it for all crimes committed after July first. Governor Jared Polis is also ready to end it. A similar measure stalled last year in the Senate because some Democrats wanted to keep it.

Scott Franz is a government watchdog reporter and photographer from Steamboat Springs. He spent the last seven years covering politics and government for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, a daily newspaper in northwest Colorado. His reporting in Steamboat stopped a police station from being built in a city park, saved a historic barn from being destroyed and helped a small town pastor quickly find a kidney donor. His favorite workday in Steamboat was Tuesday, when he could spend many of his mornings skiing untracked powder and his evenings covering city council meetings. Scott received his journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an outdoorsman who spends at least 20 nights a year in a tent. He spoke his first word, 'outside', as a toddler in Edmonds, Washington. Scott visits the Great Sand Dunes, his favorite Colorado backpacking destination, twice a year. Scott's reporting is part of Capitol Coverage, a collaborative public policy reporting project, providing news and analysis to communities across Colorado for more than a decade. Fifteen public radio stations participate in Capitol Coverage from throughout Colorado.
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