Debate begins on abolishing the death penalty
~~By KEVIN O'HANLON / Lincoln Journal Star

With opponents threatening a filibuster, Nebraska lawmakers began the politically thorny debate Monday over whether to abolish the death penalty.

"There is randomness, arbitrariness and no standard for applying this penalty," said Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha in opening debate on his bill (LB543) to change the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole -- his 37th attempt to do so.

Chambers, the most ardent death penalty opponent in the Legislature, was re-elected to his North Omaha seat in November after sitting out four years because of term limits. Each year from 1973 to 2008, he introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. In 1979, his bill passed but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charles Thone.

Noting that supporters of the death penalty say capital punishment is justified for the most heinous of murders, Chambers offered details of several murders where the killers did not get the death penalty, including one where a man drove a car through a bedroom wall and shot his wife six times in front of their children.

He said Nebraska's 93 county prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty.

"They have absolute discretion as to what charge will be filed and whether or not the death penalty will be sought," he said.

Chambers quoted U.S. Supreme Court William J. Brennan, who said in a 1976 opinion: "Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment... The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. It is thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity."

The opposition to the bill was led by Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha.

"I plan to make the case ... that the death penalty is appropriate for certain crimes. I believe that the individuals that are currently on death row belong there.

"I don't need a poll to guide my vote on this issue," he said. "Because there are communities that have experienced the most heinous crimes that you can imagine."

Custom dictates that first-round debate on a bill can last as long as eight hours. At that point, it takes 33 of the 49 senators votes to end debate and move to a vote.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee earlier this year that studies have shown the average death penalty case costs $3 million to prosecute, compared to $1.1 million for cases of life without parole.

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment, Nebraska has spent an estimated $100 million on death penalty cases but only executed three people.

"Why do we have something on our books that is so inefficient? So costly?, said Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, who once supported the death penalty.

Coash said Nebraska will never again carry out an execution because it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain lethal injection drugs.

"There isn't going to be another execution in this state," he said. "It's not gonna happen.

"What good has the death penalty done for our citizens? What good has been done?," Coash said. "Without an execution, the death penalty is pretty meaningless. It hasn't saved money. It hasn't deterred any crime."

Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland signed a law making that state the sixth in as many years to abolish the death penalty and the 18th overall to abandon capital punishment.

And some observers sense this could be the year Nebraska lawmakers follow suit.

Among those supporting Chambers' bill is the Nebraska Innocence Project, which is part of a national network that gives free legal representation to people wrongly convicted of crimes. It was founded in 1992 to help prisoners who could be proved innocent through DNA testing.

To date, 306 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 18 who served time on death row. They spent an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, its use is in sharp decline.

Nine states executed people in 2012, compared with 13 the year before. The 43 executions in 2012 were 56 percent fewer than at the peak in 1999. The 78 people sentenced to death in 2012 represented a 75 percent decline since 1996, when 315 death sentences were handed down.

Nebraska has 11 men on death row. The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997, when Robert E. Williams was electrocuted. He confessed to killing three women and trying to kill a fourth during a three-day rampage in 1977 that crossed into three states.

Reach Kevin O'Hanlon at 402-473-2682 or kohanlon@journalstar.com.

 

Courtesy: Journalstar.com