Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — A proposal to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska prompted an emotional debate Thursday on the floor of the Legislature.
Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha introduced Legislative Bill 276 to substitute life in prison without parole for the state's current system of lethal injection.
In the hourlong discussion that followed, senators struck a more charged tone than typical floor debates about tax policy or the minutia of governing.
"To be pro-life is to respect the dignity of every single life. Even the damned. Even those who do the indefensible," said Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, explaining that he will vote for the bill.
"There are some crimes that are so heinous there is no other choice but death," said Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff, noting that two of the state's death-row inmates — both of whom killed children — are from his district.
It's the first time lawmakers have discussed capital punishment since 2010, when a similar measure by Council failed to gain the 25 votes needed to advance.
The debate falls two weeks after the Nebraska Supreme Court scheduled the March 6 execution of double-killer Michael Ryan. Although he is in line to be the first man executed in Nebraska in 14 years, many observers expect more legal challenges to force a delay.
The debate also comes in the wake of high-profile legal disputes over the way Nebraska obtained one of the three drugs necessary to carry out a lethal injection. The European manufacturer of the drug has alleged it never intended the drug to be used in lethal injection, although Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning has said the drug was obtained legally from an overseas supplier.
Council said she intends to bring up Nebraska's death drugs later, but on Thursday, she pointed to 130 death row inmates in other states who were exonerated when new evidence emerged in their cases.
Though Council did not argue that any of the 11 current condemned inmates is innocent, it's not hard to find other wrongful murder convictions in the state.
"Our system is not an infallible system," she stated. "Mistakes are made."
Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood brought up the 2002 murders of five people in a bank in his hometown of Norfolk, a crime that put all three gunmen on death row. Surveillance cameras captured the shootings on tape, based on evidence in the case.
"There were no mistakes about what happened in that bank," he said. "These are vicious, obnoxious folks that have committed the most heinous of crimes, and they deserve the death penalty."
The floor debate will continue Friday.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com
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