LINCOLN, Neb.—A district court judge ruled this week that state Sen. Ernie Chambers is unable to challenge Nebraska’s procedures for executing prisoners with the electric chair.
Chambers, of Omaha, filed a lawsuit in May arguing that the state violated its own rules when it came up with a new protocol for executions a few years ago.
But Lancaster County District Judge Earl Witthoff said Tuesday that Chambers failed to show that he had a “personal interest” or suffered personal injury from the state’s protocol, as required by case law.
Chambers said Saturday that he hadn’t read the judge’s ruling and had no comment.
The Department of Correctional Services’ policy adopted in 2004 calls for a single, continuous current of electricity instead of four separate jolts, a method courts had determined didn’t comply with state law.
Chambers had said the department didn’t a follow a law that requires public hearings and state oversight when devising the new protocol. He asked the district court to order an immediate moratorium on executions until the state complies with the so-called Administrative Procedure Act.
Nine men remain on Nebraska’s death row. Three people—Harold Otey, John Joubert and Robert Williams—have been put to death in Nebraska since executions were resumed in 1994.
Carey Dean Moore was scheduled to die May 8 in the electric chair for the 1979 murders of two Omaha cab drivers. But on May 2, the state’s high court stayed the execution, saying it must reconsider whether the electric chair amounts to cruel and unusual punishment given a “changing legal landscape.”
Chambers has tried to rid the state of the death penalty every legislative term for more than 30 years. He came close in 1979, when his bill passed on a 26-22 vote. But it was vetoed by then-Gov. Charley Thone.
Debate on the bill this year was the first time in nearly 20 years the full Legislature discussed a repeal.
As legal challenges were mounted against the electric chair’s use in recent years, other states adopted alternative methods.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, nine states allow some or all condemned inmates to choose between lethal injection and another method. Ten states have electric chairs, but only Nebraska uses it exclusively.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star,
