Aside from the morality and expense issues, there's the arbitrariness factor:

A study last year by the University of Denver law school — which was commissioned by Edward Montour's attorneys — found that while the death penalty was an option in 92 percent of Colorado's first-degree murders between 1999 and 2010, it was sought only 3 percent of the time.

All three inmates on Colorado's death row are African-American. All were tried and sentenced in Arapahoe county, where Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes is awaiting a decision on whether prosecutors will seek a death sentence.

Colorado has not executed anyone since Gary Davis in 1977. But Nathan Dunlap's time is drawing near. Last month, the Supreme Court denied his appeal, paving the way for prosecutors in Arapahoe county to file a motion for a death warrant.

According to state law, once prosecutors file their motion for a death warrant, [Judge] Sylvester would designate a week between 90 and 120 days out for the execution to take place. It would be up to the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections to pick the precise day and time.

Just today, three men who allegedly robbed a Denver bar in October, killing the owner and four employees and patrons and then setting the place on fire as a coverup, were bound over for trial in Denver. One woman was stabbed more than 21 times and another 14 times. I can't find any articles referring to prosecutors' intent to seek the death penalty. The death penalty is rarely sought in Denver, or any counties besides Araphoe, Jefferson and Adams. Why should there be such a variation between counties? The death penalty should not be a geographic lottery.

For other problems with the arbitrariness of Colorado's death penalty, see this January, 2013 report from the University of Denver, described here.

In this groundbreaking study, the researchers reviewed all first-degree murder cases in the state between 1999 and 2010. They found that 92 percent of the 544 first-degree murder cases in that time span contained at least one aggravating factor that made the defendant eligible for the death penalty. However, prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty in only 15 murder cases and pursued the death penalty at trial in only five of those cases — a 1% rate among death-eligible cases.

The authors wrote, “Under the Colorado capital sentencing system, many defendants are eligible but almost none are actually sentenced to death. Because Colorado's aggravating factors so rarely result in actual death sentences, their use in any given case is a violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

Another problem: It's not really a judge or jury who decides. It's the prosecutor, who decides in the first instance whom to charge. Take the Fero's bar case. Three men are charged, but there were four in the group that night. One, who happens to be an ATF informant, is facing no charges. He claims he didn't know what the others were going to do. He turned the others in hours or days after the killings (news reports vary) and he had some of the robbery money on him. (The killings had been all over the news within an hour -- I remember watching the live reports.) Harris apparently didn't leave when the stabbings began, as he described them in detail to his ATF handler and agreed to testify against the others. The other three claim Harris is lying. But because the prosecutor believes him, he is getting a pass and no judge or jury will decide his fate. (If the jury disbelieves him at trial, it just means they all are likely to walk free.)

Another problem is that only death-qualified jurors get to sit on death penalty cases. Given the number of people in our state and society who oppose the death penalty, how is such a jury a fair representation?

Here is the Death Penalty Information Center's 2012 Year End Report on the death penalty nationally.

I'll stop now with the recent op-ed by Boulder County Stan Garnett in the Daily Camera, on "the practical problems with the death penalty [which] make it of limited relevance to Colorado law enforcement." After explaining the extreme financial cost and excessive human resources required in a death case, he writes:

My final concern is the randomness. Most murders, charged as first degree, could qualify to seek the death penalty under the Colorado statutory scheme. Though Boulder County has had plenty of heinous murders over the years, there has never been a death verdict imposed here in the nearly 140 years since statehood (the one time it was sought here, in 1978, the case plead out during jury selection due to the unwieldiness of seating a death qualified jury). The 18th Judicial District (Arapahoe/Douglas County), on the other hand, has several pending death cases currently...for murders that are not significantly different than what we prosecute in Boulder (my emphasis).

What is the point of a penalty that is only sought in a tiny percentage of the cases where it could be sought, or where geography is a factor in whether it is sought? Obviously, the risk of racial or other subjective factors being considered (or appearing to be considered) in selecting who is put to death is significant.

If the death penalty is repealed in Colorado, under the proposed bill, media reports say it would be prospective, meaning it will not affect James Holmes, or Nathan Dunlap or his fellow death row inmates. (Although Gov. Hickenlooper could decide to grant clemency to Dunlap, probably a long shot.)

Hopefully, Colorado legislators will follow in the footsteps of Maryland and other states that have seen the light. I wonder though, will they spend even a fraction of the time debating life vs. death as they did debating concealed weapons on campus and gun magazines?