Nebraska considers abolishing the death penalty
Jan 30th, 2009 by Michelle Lore
Yesterday, Nebraska lawmakers heard debate over the death penalty on two fronts. Should the state’s method of execution be changed to lethal injection? And should the state even have capital punishment?
The method of execution Nebraska had been employing, the electric chair, was declared cruel and unusual last year by its Supreme Court. That means the state currently has no way to carry out capital punishment.
Perhaps it’s prime time for Nebraska to take a cue from its neighbor to the northeast. Minnesota abolished the death penalty in 1911. While there have been proposals to reinstitute capital punishment over the years, they generally haven’t been well received.
One reason for that may be the ever-increasing number of exonerations of death row inmates. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, as of Aug. 26, 2008, there have been 130 exonerations in 26 different states. Many of those came about through the use of DNA evidence that showed that the defendant was wrongly convicted. But other factors, like eyewitness misidentification, false or forced confessions and bad lawyering play into the number of wrongful convictions as well.
The death penalty process is riddled with inconsistency and errors. In my view, that alone is enough for Nebraska lawmakers to abolish it altogether rather than merely find a less “cruel and unusual” way to administer it.
