20 February 2017 :

Senate Bill 95 to eliminate the death penalty in Colorado was rejected 3-2 by Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday night on a party-line vote. The bill’s sponsor was Senate Democratic Leader Lucia Guzman. The hearing included tear-jerking testimony from people who lost loved ones to murder, who said they found solace in the justice of capital punishment. But Guzman offered her own perspective as a victim, having lost her father to murder more than 40 years ago. While her father was working at a service station, there was a robbery over $7 and some change. His skull was smashed with a wrench, and parts of it were found strewn across the floor. It was always infuriating to Guzman that the man who was arrested was charged with manslaughter; not murder or robbery. But she said she never wished for the man who murdered her father to be sentenced to death, despite what she perceived as a light sentence. "I want you to know that I'm a victim also," Guzman said. "I'm here tonight as a victim and as a victim advocate. I'm also here as someone who does not believe that we should be a society that kills people who kill people."