Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday appointed Wisconsin’s former prisons chief, Rick Raemisch, as the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections. For his part, Raemisch described himself in a prepared statement as “a strong law and order individual, but I also believe that people can change.”
Colorado prosecutors were informed about alleged misconduct in the state toxicology lab at least three weeks before the problems were disclosed to defense lawyers, according to documents obtained by The Colorado Independent.
DENVER– Coloradans support the death penalty by wide margins, according to a poll released today by Quinnipiac University (pdf). Pollsters tied the strong views held on capital punishment to the slim margins Governor John Hickenlooper notched against three potential Republican rivals in the same poll.
DENVER– Colorado’s legal-defense community is raising questions about “what appears to be a cover-up” of systemic problems at the state lab that tests evidence in criminal cases.
When Gov. John Hickenlooper this week blocked the execution of Nathan Dunlap, he called for a statewide conversation about the death penalty. His decision to reprieve the Chuck E. Cheese’s murderer came weeks after Colorado lawmakers killed a bill to abolish capital punishment on grounds that the topic needs more public debate.
Fourteen-year-old Kiondre Davison had a habit of acting up in school and running away from home. Social services officials stepped in to help. They sent him to El Pueblo Boys and Girls Ranch, a teen treatment center that touts its “environment of safety and loving care.”
Evan Ebel, suspected murderer of Prisons Chief Tom Clements, filed a series of grievances with the Department of Corrections shortly before his release from prison that document his concerns about transitioning directly from years in solitary confinement to the free world.
A residential teen treatment center in Pueblo, Colorado, is under fire for housing children in prolonged solitary confinement.
About two weeks before his death, Evan Ebel — suspect in last month’s murders of pizza delivery man Nate Leon and Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements — wrote a suicide note to a longtime friend who says Ebel was unhinged by his abrupt release from solitary confinement and seeking revenge for years of humiliation and torture behind bars.
Colorado Independent Editor Susan Greene appeared Friday morning on Democracy Now with hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, who are in Denver this weekend for the National Conference on Media Reform and broadcasting from Denver’s public-access Open Media Foundation studio. The three discussed the Colorado gun violence that has regularly made national headlines over the last few years and months, including the recent shooting of Tom Clements, head of the state’s department of corrections.
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