district attorney office sent a counter argument to the governor. we addressed the mental health issues. they d all been raised before in appellate court levels and now they were being raised yet again to ask the governor to act as the 13th jury, the super-juror. we also gave him a book of pictures from the crime scene and letters from victims families. as part of his process, the governor met in person with the victims families. most of the victims families were there, and most of us were very adamant that he deserved the death penalty. i explained, you know, i ve remained quiet for this long, i haven t said anything, but now it s time for me to speak up. i think nathan deserves to face his maker. but some in the room, including victim colleen o connor s mother, felt differently.
anyone since the late 1960s, but support for dunlap s death sentence was overwhelming. the death penalty. no doubt in my mind. mr. dunlap should be allowed to come out of the penitentiary only in a pine box. he took lives that he was not entitled to take. not for self-defense. not for self-preservation. nothing. this man is a mass murderer. and he deserves death. for 20 years as dunlap appealed his death sentence, violence continued to strike colorado. masked gunman walked into columbine high school. shooting at century theaters. they re saying somebody is shooting in the auditorium. and cries for vengeance increased. too many criminals. time all of them die. kill all of them, colorado. that will take care of all this crap. in 2013, nathan dunlap s execution ordered landed on the desk of governor john hickenlooper and in an odd twist of fate, the governor s own
history played a role in his reprieve, but his executive order also calls into question whether the state should be putting people to death at all. death is different. right? it s final. and the finality of it is so powerful that i think it makes all of us look at it in a different sense. there s a reason why now 18 states have banned the death penalty. i was the entire state to have an examination around the issues of the death penalty, whether it is effective policy or whether it is broken and really doesn t function well. by making the reprieve temporary, the governor left over the possibility that the next election will decide nathan dunlap s fate, and the day after his announcement, one of the governor s biggest political opponents declared his candidacy. if i m elected governor, let s see, 20 minutes after i actually enter the office and get a pen in my hand, i will rescind the order.
it has to be all 12 jurors saying i personally agree with the death sentence. if one person says no, then it s a life sentence. though he d been impassive during trial, at the hearing where the judge officially imposed the death sentence, nathan responded directly to remarks by the victims family members. man, i don t give a [ bleep ] about you, your mama, your whole [ bleep ]. you know what i m saying? nathan lost it. he blew up. he was screaming. i don t take none of your [ bleep ]. i think people in the courtroom got to see nathan dunlap as nathan dunlap. i don t even give a [ bleep ]. you know what i m saying? how angered he could be. how vicious he could be. when you saw him and you saw the look on his face, he was a different person. [ bleep ]. i m sorry, adinea. i m sorry. in the years to come,
august of 2013. now, dunlap s last effort to save his life is in asking the governor of the state of colorado for clemency. in 2010, governor john hickenlooper jr., the popular former mayor of denver, had won the governor s seat in commanding fashion. this clemency appeal arrives on john hickenlooper s desk as the last hope for nathan dunlap s life. with eyes across the nation watching colorado, governor hickenlooper would be forced to decide whether nathan dunlap should live or die. towards the promise of a better existence. but these birds are suffering. because this better place turned out to have an unreliable cell phone network, and the videos on their little bird phones kept buffering. birds hate that. so they came back home. because they get $300 for switching back to verizon.