Jury spares another Colorado killer from execution

The man who stabbed five people to death in a Denver bar in 2012 has escaped death penalty.

Dexter Lewis, an African-American, was spared by a jury of 12 on Thursday and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Lewis stabbed four women and a man with multiple thrusts during a robbery in Fero's Bar & Grill where he tried to set fire with the victims inside and made off with 165 U.S. dollars in cash on Oct. 17, 2012.

Among the dead, 63-year-old Young Suk Fero was the owner of the bar and a Korean immigrant.

On Aug. 6, James Holmes, the Batman midnight movie killer, was also spared execution when one of the 12 jury members did not agree on death penalty.

The Denver Post called for the end of death penalty in Colorado in an editorial Friday, while Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler demanded a standard for mass murderers who commit heinous crimes.

Under Colorado law, death penalty can only be sentenced when juries unanimously agree.

"When it comes to sentencing death, most people think twice about executing a person they've been looking at in the court for months," former prosecutor and legal expert Karen Steinhauser told Xinhua.

In the Lewis case, at least one juror sided with Lewis' defense team that his abused childhood was a mitigating factor in the case.

The last execution in Colorado took place in 1997 and no one has been sentenced to death in Denver since 1986. Endi