DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper indefinitely delayed the execution of convicted killer Nathan Dunlap on Wednesday and said he was unlikely to allow it as long as he is governor.

Hickenlooper said he had doubts about the fairness of Colorado's death penalty system and about the state's ability to get the lethal drugs required for an execution.

Dunlap, 38, was convicted and sentenced to die in 1996 for the ambush slayings of four people in a Denver-area restaurant. Hickenlooper's action essentially guarantees Dunlap will survive through Jan. 13, 2015, the last day of Hickenlooper's first term. Hickenlooper plans to run for re-election, and the reprieve is sure to be a campaign issue.

Dunlap, whose execution was scheduled for the week of Aug. 18, got only a reprieve, not the clemency he sought. Clemency would have removed the possibility of execution and changed his sentence to life without parole.

Dunlap could conceivably be executed one day if another governor lifts the reprieve.

Hickenlooper's announcement infuriated prosecutors and some of the victims' relatives.

"He took a coward's way out," said Melinda Cromar, whose 19-year-old sister Sylvia Crowell was killed. "I am just so angry."

District Attorney George Brauchler said Hickenlooper had made no decision at all.

"He could have made a decision I disagreed with. He could have made a decision I agreed with. But to not make a decision is an injustice," said Brauchler, the top prosecutor in the district where Dunlap was convicted.

Madeline Cohen, one of Dunlap's attorney's expressed relief.

"I'm very, very glad that the governor has decided not to go forward and has recognized how many problems there are in the system," she said.

Hickenlooper said he listened to all sides and considered the decision carefully.

"We heard a variety of sides and obviously this has weighed heavily on me for well over a year now," he said at a news conference.

Dunlap has acknowledged fatally shooting four employees -- three of them teenagers -- who were cleaning a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant after hours in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job there as a cook. On the night of Dec. 14, 1993, he hid in a restaurant bathroom until the restaurant closed, then shot and killed Crowell; Ben Grant, 17; Colleen O'Connor, 17; and Margaret Kohlberg, a 50-year-old mother who was on her first day on the job.

Each was shot in the head. A co-worker Bobby Stephens, then 20, was also shot in the head, but he survived and testified against Dunlap.

One of the victims was down on her knees and begging for her life when Dunlap shot her.

Dunlap lost his last mandatory appeal in February, and his lawyers petitioned Hickenlooper for clemency and also filed other lawsuits challenging the sentence and execution process.

In his reprieve, Hickenlooper said Colorado's capital punishment system is flawed, citing a study that showed the death penalty was sought and imposed inconsistently across the state.

He also said the state doesn't have the drugs in place to carry out an execution by lethal injection, and that many states and nations are repealing the death penalty.

Hickenlooper's reprieve order mostly referred to Dunlap by his state prison number.

"I don't use his name. I haven't with any of these mass killings because I don't think he needs any more notoriety," Hickenlooper said at the news conference.

Dunlap's attorneys say he was remorseful, and they released a video and written statement in which Dunlap apologized.

They also said he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time of the shootings.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/22/killer-execution-delayed-indefinitely-by-colorado-governor/?test=latestnews#ixzz2U6BnxMqu

This Governor is and has been a joke from day one. I can't wait until the voters toss his a$$ out in 2015.

What's gonna happen when Holmes is convicted and sentenced to death? Will he side with him too? Hell, he is probably Holmes biggest fan since Holmes brought him to the national spotlight and he couldn't wait to get in front of those cameras.

Bring him here to Texas, we know what to do with them and they never murder anyone again.

Is this the same Dumbass Governor who created those crazy restrictive Firearms-Laws?

yep... lib central...

should sent that Horse's Patoot to Lower Slobbovia!

Yes. I hope they start to petition to impeach him soon.

I read he has aspirations for higher office, probably national and this incident will be as bad if not worse then the Willie Horton issue that hurt Michael Dukakis in his campaign.

This idiot is beyond Liberal. Hell, he will probably pardon this guy and give him a place in his cabinet.

Is this a Lynch mob thread?

The man is governor, he made a decision, deal with it.

Lynch mob indeed. Kill and be done with it. Shades of the Wild West. Have Gun will travel.

there is a distinct possibility that he will have to deal with it!

The governor was elected by the people like it or not. He has certain powers which governors have, like it or not. He may loose the next election... maybe.

He may not be liked by the lynch mob... oh well.

He made his decision.

I say to the complainers..... deal with it -- and quit whining like a bunch of blood thirsty people out for revenge.

Its not justice they want, its revenge.

Isn't there a Recall-Movement underfoot?
If there is,it might not go until the next regular Election!
Not sure he really did Colorado a favor with that Firearms Legislation!

Recall? I hope so.... but do those things ever work? I've never seen them work.

He signed sweeping gun-control legislation and approved laws to help people who are in the country illegally and to establish civil unions for same-sex couples this year.

Grassroots Effort Begins to Initiate Recall Vote of Colorado (D) Gov. John Hickenlooper for Signing New York Style Gun Control Laws
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/coloradogovernorrecallpetitioning22mar13.shtml

You've never seen them work? Grey Davis might have something to say about that. A very Liberal state that voted to recall their own Democratic Governor.

I don't want revenge, I want justice. This was a cold, calculated crime where he killed kids at a Chuck E Cheese.

Recall elections just cost the taxpayers tons of money.
Justice is sometimes just another word for revenge.

Maybe he will get a different kind of justice in prison.

Death row can't be all that comfy.

Hickenlooper?

Isn't he related to Engleburt Humperdink?

Huh?

No lynch mob mentality.
Just do like the muslims and stone him to death.