The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from an inmate, Nathan Dunlap who killed four people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in 1993, giving a Colorado judge the ability to schedule the state's first execution in 15 years.
The court's rejection has ended Dunlap's guaranteed appeals, and sends the case back to Colorado's 18th Judicial District, where a judge will set a time frame for execution, the Associated Press reported.
At the time of his murders, Dunlap was a 19-year-old former employee of the restaurant when he killed the night manager, and three other employees, all teenagers. They all died from gunshots to the head. A fifth victim survived the shooting, and was able to identify Dunlap, leading to a jury to convict him in 1996.
Dunlap, now 38, is one of three men on death row in Colorado. Gary Lee Davis was put to death in Colorado in 1997 for a murder in 1986. Before that, Colorado had gone 30 years since its last execution, in part to a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that led to a moratorium on the death penalty.
Even as the state reinstated the death penalty in 1984, in 2003, three inmates had their death sentences commuted to life in prison without parole after ruling juries, not judges, should impose capital punishment.
Dunlap's death sentence was handed up by a jury, which convicted him of eight counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder, robbery, theft and burglary.
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