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Political fortunes would come to rest on his decision. >> we're going to have an election in 2014 where one of the questions is, do we want to kill this one person? >> the case sparked a raging debate over capital punishment and posed the question, what should be done with society's most heinous criminals? >> the death penalty encompasses the most highly emotional issues for all of us. it's life and death. it's justice. all that stuff comes back together on trying to decide what we do with the worst of the worst. >> kill them all. [ bleep ]. >> there was a body under the water. >> butchered an...

We happen to have three african-american men who are on death row for the same thing. cold-blooded murder. and in my view, it has nothing to do with race. it has everything to do about murder. >> over the next few years, rhonda fields would continue to be an important voice in favor of capital punishment. especially because the dunlap case was about to remerge in the headlines. after nearly 20 years of court proceedings, nathan's defense team was running out of options. in 2012, the tenth circuit court rejected his final appeal, and a year later, the supreme court refused to hear his case. dis...

>> during the time rhonda was pushing for death for her son's killers, nathan dunlap continued to work on his appeals. >> this was not a chance to proof that he was innocent, to set dunlap free. the focus was on his mental health and any other mitigating factors that could have gone into a jury's decision about whether he should be put to death. >> nathan dunlap's attorneys make a pretty powerful case about bipolarity saying this was not properly explored. in the original case. >> by 2006, prison doctors had finally diagnosed nathan as bipolar and put him on the powerful drug, lithium. once me...

When the death penalty is subjected to an election, whether a gubernatorial, in this case nathan dunlap, or a ballot measure, we are saying essentially that the emotions of the mob should rule. >> certain things are simply not up for a popular vote, and i believe whether someone lives or dies should be one of those things. >> you know, it goes back to public stonings and lynchings, you know, we don't have mob justice. >> in early 2014, a poll showed that a majority of coloradans still supported the death penalty and disapproved of how the governor handled the dunlap case. >> we believe in upho...

Support in the colorado legislature. >> the effort to repeal the death penalty in colorado came from the fact that there is a budget crisis, and the death penalty is a huge money drain. there's one estimate that the nathan dunlap case has cost the state $18 million. >> it's absolutely more expensive to handle a death case because of the time it takes and the appeals going forth for 20 years. >> how can we better use resources to be more effective? >> in addition to its high cost, supporters of the bill argue that the death penalty was used inconsistently across the state. >> in some counties, ...