Getting your player ready...
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska lawmakers rejected an attempt to repeal the death penalty on Tuesday, a month after courts left the state with no way to execute its killers.
Twenty senators in the nonpartisan Legislature voted for the bill to change the maximum penalty to life in prison without possibility of parole. It would have taken 25 votes to advance the debate.
The state Supreme Court ruled in February that the electric chair, the state’s sole means of putting inmates to death, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The most likely alternative — lethal injection — is under federal review. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by June.
