Court: Bank gunman should die

LINCOLN — Jorge Galindo deserves to die for his role in the attempted robbery of a Norfolk, Neb., bank in which five people were shot and killed, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled today.

“Galindo knowingly participated in a dangerous crime in which five innocent victims were almost immediately shot and killed without any provocation,” the court stated.

Galindo, now 28, was one of four men convicted in the Sept. 26, 2002, slayings, the deadliest bank robbery in state history.

He and two other gunmen fanned out inside a U.S. Bank branch, shouted that a bank alarm had been pulled and almost simultaneously shot four bank employees and a customer. They fled within 50 seconds without taking any money.

Those three — Jose Sandoval, Erick Vela and Galindo — now sit on death row. A fourth man who acted as a lookout, Gabriel Rodriguez, was sentenced to life in prison.

Galindo had argued, among other things, that the trial judge had given an improper “pep talk” to jurors before the trial and had allowed jurors to serve who had already decided that Galindo was guilty.

Galindo’s court-appointed attorney, Doug Stratton, had also contended that District Judge Robert Ensz should have moved the trial out of Madison County because of extensive pretrial publicity, saying it was impossible for Galindo to get a fair trial.

But the high court ruled that Galindo deserved the death penalty. The court rejected all his arguments except one — that death in the electric chair amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

That issue was decided by the Supreme Court in February 2008, after Galindo had filed his appeal. This spring, the Legislature made lethal injection the means for carrying out the state’s death penalty.

Galindo also argued that Nebraska had no valid death penalty at the time of the slayings because they occurred after a ruling that struck down the state’s sentencing procedures and before the Legislature passed a law amending the procedures to impose the death penalty.

But today’s 76-page ruling, written by Supreme Court Judge Michael McCormack, reiterated that the law changed only procedures and that capital punishment was valid.

Galindo, of Madison, Neb., shot and killed bank employee Lola Elwood and fired shots at a bank customer who entered the facility after the shooting started. The customer suffered superficial wounds from flying glass as she fled.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com

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