LINCOLN, Neb.-
A day after the Legislature upheld the death penalty, the state Supreme Court set a May date to use it on inmate Carey Dean Moore. But some state senators aren’t giving up on at least changing the death penalty in a way that could affect Moore.
In a filing with the high court earlier this month, Moore said he was stopping his decadeslong fight against the death penalty.
“Appellant respectfully requests this court to grant appellant one request: Appellant wishes to be executed …” Moore said in the filing.
Moore, who murdered two people in 1979, asked to be executed May 7. The high court issued an order Wednesday that Moore be electrocuted May 8.
But late Thursday, a key legislative committee is crafting legislation that, while not an outright repeal of the death penalty, would make significant changes that could affect Moore and others on death row. Under the plan, only murderers whose incarceration would not eliminate the threat they pose to people in prison and possibly people outside prison walls, could be executed, according to Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
“It doesn’t repeal the death penalty but would make it so that someone would not be eligible for the death penalty if it was determined he or she would not do harm to others while in prison,” said Ashford of the plan. “If we could be assured the person would not pose a danger, then killing them would not be essential.”
Ashford said the plan was not drafted in response to the Moore case and that he did not know whether it would affect Moore.
Such a measure could be enough to change the votes of a couple senators, including Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln, who voted against the bill that called for a repeal of the death penalty.
A bill from Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha to repeal the death penalty failed Tuesday by just one vote.
If carried out, the execution of Moore will be the first in the state since Robert Williams was put to death in late 1997. Williams was one of just three people—Harold Otey and John Joubert are the others—who have been put to death in Nebraska since executions were resumed in 1994.
“You all got what you wanted,” Chambers said on the floor of the Legislature Thursday.
“I hope it makes you happy,” Chambers continued. “It makes me miserable.”
It was the first time in nearly 20 years the Legislature had debated repealing the death penalty.
Chambers also chided the Supreme Court. It was “highly indecent, it is obscene” for the court to have set the date so soon after the Legislature’s vote and not ordered a mental evaluation of Moore after he expressed a desire to be executed.
Moore’s attorney, Alan Peterson of Lincoln, declined to comment other than to say Moore will not pursue a civil rights action in court and could, if he chooses, request that the state Pardons Board commute Moore’s sentence.
Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of Omaha cab drivers Reuel Eugene Van Ness Jr. and Maynard D. Helgeland during separate robberies.
The U.S. Supreme Court in January denied an appeal by Moore, where he argued that execution by the electric chair amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The order left Nebraska as the only state with electrocution as its only means of execution.
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