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John Hickenlooper, Governor136 State CapitolDenver, CO 80203-1792

Dear Governor Hickenlooper:

I am asking you to please consider repealing the death penalty in Colorado.

Convicted felons that were once sentenced to death row should instead be sentenced to life in prison without parole. This would stop the seemingly endless appeals process that costs the state millions of dollars and allow the victims of such crimes to heal. The money saved could be used to fund mental illness programs (among others) and potentially prevent future crimes from happening. The death penalty has proved to be a failed and arbitrary process in Colorado, and now is the time to eliminate this barbaric form of punishment. If we are to be a civilized people we have to be better than the perpetrators of the crimes. To quote Lewis Lawes, one-time warden of Sing Sing Prison, “As if one crime of such nature done by a single man acting individually can be expiated by a similar crime done by all men, acting collectively.” It is degrading to us as people and as a society to pervert our criminal justice system into one that believes that vengeance is synonymous with justice.

The death penalty should be abolished; it teaches American citizens that it’s okay to end a life when one is taken away. It undermines the sanctity of human life by showing how little it is valued, even by us as a people. Statistics show that in an area that the death penalty is enacted, crime and homicide rates rise. The death penalty will never bring loved ones back. It will only prolong the painful process and cause more suffering to the victims while offering no real sense of closure. Please consider this when you consider repealing this law. It is not merely for the lives of the perpetrators that I ask clemency; I ask it for ours, too.

Sincerely,

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