May 27, 2015
By Russell Berman
...In 2009, (click here) the state became the last in the nation to adopt lethal injections as its mode of execution, after its highest court ruled the electric chair unconstitutional. Yet like several other states, it has had a hard time procuring the cocktail of drugs needed to carry out the death penalty, and its lethal-injection chamber has remained dormant. That failure has given momentum to opponents of capital punishment, including a new group of conservatives that has invoked fiscal and religious arguments to woo right-leaning legislators to their side.
“It’s not just about the procurement of drugs,” said Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, an organization that sprouted up in Montana several years ago and has since expanded nationally. “It’s not pro-life because it risks innocent life. It’s not fiscally responsible because it costs millions more dollars than life without parole.” Yet Nebraska’s bumbling and occasionally shady attempts to carry out death sentences—along with incidents in neighboring states like the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma—have given rise to another argument that sells among conservatives: the death penalty is just another example of government run amok....
This is a list of all inmates, both past and present, sentenced to death in Nebraska. (click here)
The large majority of Nebraska's executions were never carried out. Many were commuted. To commute a death penalty sentence shows lack of confidence in the decision. Interesting.
Jeremy Sheets (click here) had his sentence vacated and was released directly from death row in Nebraska.
A man convicted of first-degree murder was sentenced to the electric chair, but after five years in prison he was proven innocent and released. Jeremy Sheets, a member of the Witness to Innocence organization, came to KU to speak to students and faculty about his experience on death row and about certain aspects of the U.S. criminal justice system.
Witness to Innocence is an organization of death row exonerees who are striving to educate the public about the death penalty and to eliminate it from our justice system. According to the organization, Witness to Innocence, “Sheets was arrested for the 1992 rape and murder of 17-year-old Honors student Kenyatta Bush in Omaha. He was convicted in 1997 based exclusively on a taped confession made by his co-defendant, Adam Barnett.”...
By Russell Berman
...In 2009, (click here) the state became the last in the nation to adopt lethal injections as its mode of execution, after its highest court ruled the electric chair unconstitutional. Yet like several other states, it has had a hard time procuring the cocktail of drugs needed to carry out the death penalty, and its lethal-injection chamber has remained dormant. That failure has given momentum to opponents of capital punishment, including a new group of conservatives that has invoked fiscal and religious arguments to woo right-leaning legislators to their side.
“It’s not just about the procurement of drugs,” said Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, an organization that sprouted up in Montana several years ago and has since expanded nationally. “It’s not pro-life because it risks innocent life. It’s not fiscally responsible because it costs millions more dollars than life without parole.” Yet Nebraska’s bumbling and occasionally shady attempts to carry out death sentences—along with incidents in neighboring states like the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma—have given rise to another argument that sells among conservatives: the death penalty is just another example of government run amok....
This is a list of all inmates, both past and present, sentenced to death in Nebraska. (click here)
The large majority of Nebraska's executions were never carried out. Many were commuted. To commute a death penalty sentence shows lack of confidence in the decision. Interesting.
Jeremy Sheets (click here) had his sentence vacated and was released directly from death row in Nebraska.
A man convicted of first-degree murder was sentenced to the electric chair, but after five years in prison he was proven innocent and released. Jeremy Sheets, a member of the Witness to Innocence organization, came to KU to speak to students and faculty about his experience on death row and about certain aspects of the U.S. criminal justice system.
Witness to Innocence is an organization of death row exonerees who are striving to educate the public about the death penalty and to eliminate it from our justice system. According to the organization, Witness to Innocence, “Sheets was arrested for the 1992 rape and murder of 17-year-old Honors student Kenyatta Bush in Omaha. He was convicted in 1997 based exclusively on a taped confession made by his co-defendant, Adam Barnett.”...
