CENTENNIAL | Attorneys for Nathan Dunlap lost their bid to defer the death sentence for the man who killed four people at an Aurora pizza restaurant in 1993. His sentence to die by lethal injection was set to be carried out between Aug. 18 and Aug. 24.
Nathan Dunlap, 38, center, with attorneys Philip Cherner, left and Madeline Cohen, appear at a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Nathan Dunlap, 38, center, with attorneys Philip Cherner, left and Madeline Cohen, appear at a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Nathan Dunlap, 38, right, with attorneys Philip Cherner, left and Madeline Cohen, appear at a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Nathan Dunlap, 38, right, with attorney Madeline Cohen, appears at a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Nathan Dunlap, 38, appears for a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Deputies remove the shackles from Nathan Dunlap, 38, center, during a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Judge William Sylvester listens during a hearing for Nathan Dunlap at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked Sylvester Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Philip Cherner, attorney for Nathan Dunlap, addresses the court at a hearing at Arapahoe County Court in Centennial, Colo, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Dunlap’s attorneys asked a judge Wednesday to delay designating a week for execution, saying Dunlap’s death sentence was meant to be served only after he completed a 75-year sentence for robbery. Dunlap is convicted of killing four people at a Colorado pizza restaurant in 1993. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson, Pool)
Attorney’s argued that Dunlap shouldn’t die until he’s finished serving a sentence for robbery, which would be 2022 at the earliest.
Dunlap, who was 19 years old when he robbed at gunpoint and killed four people at a Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurant near South Peoria Street and East Mississippi Avenue, is quickly running out of legal options to avoid being put to death.
Phil Cherner, Dunlap’s lawyer, said in an Arapahoe County district court on Wednesday that prosecutors deliberately tried Dunlap on a separate robbery of a fast food chain before trying him in the Chuck E. Cheese case. They did that, Cherner said, because the fast food robbery conviction would be an aggrevating factor when they sought a death sentence. The subsequent death sentence is supposed to be carried out consecutively to that other sentence, Cherner said.
Prosecutors “got what they asked for” with the consecutive sentence, he said. The prosecution has argued the death penalty does not have to run consecutive to the other sentence.
His attorneys also said that the Arapahoe County judge shouldn’t set an execution date until the Colorado State Supreme Court ruled on Dunlap’s appeals court ruling. Dunlap has exhausted nearly all appeals in his death sentence, and was dealt a serious setback earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal that his defense team botched his trail. Many considered that appeal to be his last, best chance at staying alive.
Dunlap was in court today with long dreadlocks and blue shirt. His hands were shackled and he was flanked by several Colorado Department of Corrections guards and Arapahoe County sheriffs. Dunlap would be the first Colorado inmate to be executed since Gary Lee Davis in 1993.
Cherner said he is working on a clemency petition that will be sent to the governor, likely the defense team’s last hope after recent setbacks at the state court of appeals and in court Wednesday.
Cherner said he hopes the governor sees that attitudes toward the death penalty are changing and more and more people are opposed to it.
“This is not the time to change that,” he said.
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said, however, that the governor shouldn’t intervene in a case where a jury and several judges have ruled the death penalty was appropriate.
“Every court who has touched this case has said it has been done correctly,” he said.
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The restaurant was at Peoria Street and ILIFF Avenue.
He needs to die.