DENVER | Attorneys are puzzling over their next step in three potentially significant court cases involving convicted killer Nathan Dunlap.

Dunlap’s lawyers were pressing the legal challenges when Gov. John Hickenlooper granted Dunlap a temporary reprieve on May 22.

If they’re successful, the challenges could force the Legislature to rewrite state death penalty laws and require the Department of Corrections to go public with details of its execution methods.

But with the reprieve in place, it’s not clear whether those cases are moot.

Dunlap was scheduled to be executed in August for the 1993 ambush slayings of three teens and a 50-year-old woman in a pizzeria in suburban Denver.

The reprieve could stay in place for 5 1/2 years if Hickenlooper is re-elected next year. Hickenlooper says he’s unlikely to lift it.