Legislation to do away with the death penalty in Colorado and to funnel the savings to a unit that would investigate unsolved murders has received a "reprieve," writes the Colorado Springs Gazette. Although the state Senate stripped references to the death penalty from the bill during heated debate Monday, a House version of the bill leaves the ban intact, meaning that six state lawmakers will hash out the differences in a conference committee, possibly sending the ban back to the House and Senate for one last vote. Senate bill sponsor Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat, was confident yesterday that there's enough support to get the death penalty ban back in the bill and predicted another cliffhanger vote today--the final day of the 2009 Legislative session, according to CBS4. Governor Bill Ritter has not said whether he supports ending the death penalty, essentially allowing "lawmakers [to] assume that he would have vetoed" the bill, writes public television producer Dominic Dezzutti for CBS4's blog.