Good news for death penalty opponents

The news coming out of Denver is that the state took a step toward eliminating the death penalty April 21. House Bill 1274 passed through the state House of Representatives by a narrow 33-32 margin. Just one of the 33 yays came from a Republican (26-1 against), but the Democrats were more split on the vote (32-6 in favor).

Now the bill heads to the state senate.

While Colorado has only executed one person in the last 30-plus years, eliminating the death penalty would be a step toward eliminating the culture of death in Colorado.

The Colorado Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the bishops in Colorado, has a statement on capital punishment on its Web site (http://www.cocatholicconference.org/). Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and Auxiliary Bishop James Conley; Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan; and Pueblo Bishop Arthur Tafoya, recognize the need for punishment in capital crimes but call for the state to seek alternatives to the death penalty:

In capital murder cases, we recognize that grave punishment is needed both to serve justice and to ensure the safety of the community. But we also believe, as Pope John Paul II once observed, that improvements in the penal system of developed countries like our own make the death penalty unnecessary to protect the community.

The state of Colorado has other means available to it besides the death penalty to exact justice and render the criminal unable to do harm. We need to continue the reform of our criminal justice system, and we need to impose punishment in a way that protects society from violence while avoiding further killing under official guise.

All human life, from conception to natural death, including the life of a convicted
murderer, has intrinsic value. For the sake of our own humanity, we need to turn away from a mistaken idea of justice based -- in practice -- on further and unneeded violence.

You can read the entire statement at the Colorado Catholic Conference site