LINCOLN, Neb.—If a key Nebraska lawmaker has his way, the Legislature will debate much more than whether to replace the electric chair with lethal injection.
Senators also would debate whether it should be harder for the state to impose the death penalty at all.
Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha said on Wednesday that he can support advancing a lethal injection measure to the full Legislature only if the death penalty is limited to only those who deserve it the most.
He hasn’t yet settled on what the amendment would say, but Wednesday he was leaning toward one that would mandate the death penalty be imposed only when at least two aggravating circumstances exist, except in extreme cases.
Ashford’s positions carry special weight because the Judiciary Committee typically prefers presenting major bills to the Legislature with a united front. That usually requires the support of the committee chairman, which Ashford is.
Current law requires at least one aggravating circumstance in a case for a killer to be sentenced to death. Aggravating circumstances include particularly heinous acts of violence, violent criminal histories or other factors that warrant the death penalty as determined by judges and juries.
Creighton University law student Michael Hooper, who researched death penalty issues for the Judiciary Committee, told members on Wednesday that since 1973 there have been just five people sentenced to death in cases involving more than one aggravating circumstance.
But three of those sentences were reversed, leaving just two people originally sentenced to death for having one aggravating circumstance still on death row.
The Legislature is considering death penalty bills in the wake of the 2008 decision by the state Supreme Court to outlaw the electric chair, calling it a cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling left the state with no legal way of carrying out death penalties.
There are 11 men on Nebraska’s death row; the last execution occurred in 1997.
Ashford said he expects the Judiciary Committee will vote next week on whether to advance the lethal injection measure (LB36) to the full Legislature.
There might also be a vote to advance a bill (LB306) to repeal the death penalty, which Ashford said should be debated by the full Legislature.
The Judiciary Committee appears poised to suggest changes to the lethal injection bill that wouldn’t affect who is subject to the death penalty.
Media of Nebraska, an association of news organizations, had expressed concern that the protocol and the process to create the protocol to execute prisoners, using lethal injection, wouldn’t be open to the public.
But an amendment would make public the protocol, including the type of drugs to be used and the sequence in which they would be administered. Based on the amendment, Media of Nebraska said, it won’t oppose the bill.
The Judiciary Committee may suggest that the process used to determine the protocol also be transparent.
The current bill lets the director of the state Department of Correctional Services to come up with the protocol in private. But the Judiciary Committee may suggest that the process be more public, in line with processes used to devise other state rules and regulations.
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