Let us
learn more about the facts of the death penalty in Nebraska from the NEBRASKANS FOR THE DEATH PENALTY:
INTERNET SOURCE: http://ago.nebraska.gov/media/news/view/101182/nebraska-facts-about-nebraskas-death-penalty
Nebraska
Facts About Nebraska's Death Penalty
Posted:
Wed, September 14, 2016
Lincoln—Today, Attorney General Doug Peterson was
joined by Chief Deputy Attorney General David Bydalek, Solicitor General Jim
Smith, and Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly, to provide Nebraskans accurate
information on the death penalty, responding to the false claims made in a
recently released study regarding costs associated to the death penalty.
“Nebraska voters should be trusted with Nebraska
numbers,” Attorney General Peterson stated, "Individual opinions on the
death penalty may differ, but those opinions should be based on accurate
Nebraska data."
In a study entitled, “The Economic Impact of the
Death Penalty on the State of Nebraska: A Taxpayer Burden?”, Dr. Ernest Goss
claims that “Nebraska’s maintenance of the death penalty cost the state, in
2015 dollars, approximately $14.6 million annually.” Goss’s projected
savings to the State of Nebraska through the elimination of the death penalty
are not based on Nebraska-specific data. When Nebraska-specific data is
considered, Goss’s conclusion cannot be supported.
·
The
Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy states that there is no appreciable
difference in trying a murderer who is subject to life imprisonment and one who
is subject to the death penalty.
·
On
average, less than one death penalty case is tried in the state each year.
·
On
average there is less than one-half of an appeal filed by Nebraska’s death row
inmates each year of incarceration.
·
Incarceration
costs are functionally equal between death penalty inmates and inmates serving
life sentences.
These facts alone indicate Goss’ conclusions
on cost are not credible.
General Peterson continues, "Nebraskan’s are
entitled to accurate and truthful information as they prepare to vote in the
referendum on LB268 in November. The misinformation spread by death
penalty opponents does a disservice to the people of this state. The actual
case-specific data regarding Nebraska’s 10 death row inmates sets the record
straight."
INTERNET SOURCE: http://columbustelegram.com/news/opinion/nebraska-needs-death-penalty/article_e75fa394-0071-5860-883d-81d031614f43.html
Nebraska needs death penalty
- Sep 2, 2016
To the editor:
Let’s analyze the death penalty for
its positive benefits.
Earlier, prior to recent assaults on
penitentiary guards, a public conversation in a local business regarded the
elimination of the death penalty. One man said, “I feel sorry for the
guards." “What?” He stated that getting rid of the death penalty makes the
guards a target; and inmates will say, “What are you going to do, give me life
in prison? I already have that.”
It’s not only the guards. “No penalty”
also places other inmates at higher risk.
Life in prison: Free room, free meals,
free health care, free recreation, at least some free education. Without the
death penalty, nothing much to lose. And so far, inmates sentenced to life are
still eligible for parole/release.
What does one do with the serial
killer? Or the unrepentant, already-confined killer who remains a risk to those
around him? How much money is the state going to save when sued for failure to
provide any ramifications whatsoever for the deaths or serious injuries of
prison guards and inmates? Further, who wants to work in a position so
undervalued that your life can be taken with absolutely no risk to the
perpetrator?
Fear of wrongfully putting people to
death can better be addressed by changing other laws, perhaps only allowing
external/originating death penalties in heinous crimes based on actual physical
evidence.
The financial aspect can also be
addressed by law changes. If the ultimate goal is saving tax dollars, review
and amend the appeal process itself.
Fear of the death penalty is supposed
to inhibit the likelihood of murder in our communities and further murders by
incarcerated inmate killers. We may need to enact laws to limit when the
penalty is applied, but eliminating it entirely invites anarchy. We need the
death penalty.
Anita Zavadil
Columbus
INTERNET SOURCE: http://netnebraska.org/article/news/1040888/death-penalty-moral-advocates-opponents-and-students-wrestle-question
Is the
Death Penalty Moral? Advocates, opponents and students wrestle with the
question
by Bill Kelly, Senior Producer, NET News
 |
|
"Classroom Conversations" discussion at Metropolitan Community
College in Omaha (photo by Mike Tobias, NET News)
|
September
11, 2016 - 3:29pm
Can a
person's actions be so heinous to justify ending their life? For more
than 100 years state law said yes: in such a case the courts had the
power to bring on the death of another human being.
On
Nov. 8 the question will be put to Nebraska voters once and for all.
Nebraska’s choice on whether to retain
use of the death penalty may be complex, but our NET News project to promote a
lively discussion was simple. At three of the state’s community college we
offered students the chance to ask tough questions of the people advocating
each side of the referendum on the ballot in November.
The program “Classroom
Conversations: Nebraska’s Death Penalty Vote” will be shown repeatedly
prior to the Nov. 8 election.
Some of the most pointed exchanges
occurred when the students, from a variety of backgrounds, questioned the
morality, ethics, and foundations of religious belief that support or challenge
the use of capital punishment.
Two of the men on death row were
convicted in Scotts Bluff County. Raymond Mata killed 3-year-old Adam Gomez in
a manner too hideous to detail. In 2003, Jeffrey Hessler raped and murdered
Heather Geurrero, a 15-year-old newspaper carrier from Gering.
The murders still resonate across the
state’s panhandle and they prompted Western Nebraska Community College student
to challenge how death penalty opponents can should address family members of
the victims.
“The crimes that they
committed to the children were horrible,” Kayla Roberts said. “Being the mother of two, if somebody did that to my children,
I would hope that they would get what was coming to them.”
She ended with a question directed at
Stacy Anderson, representing the group hoping to end the use of the death
penalty, Retain a Just Nebraska.
How would you describe to a mother
that life in prison is morally justifiable?” asked Roberts.
“I would never tell a mother how to
feel about the death penalty,” Anderson replied. “If their child was murdered,
they get to feel whatever they want about the death penalty.”
Anderson noted she lived in the
Scottsbluff area and had been deeply affected by both the homicides. She
pointed out that some survivors are unable to find comfort because the State of
Nebraska” so rarely seek the death penalty” and has been stymied in its
attempts to successfully execute those have been convicted and sentenced to
death.
“There are so few cases where the
death penalty is sought, that essentially we’re telling some mothers, ‘your
child’s murder was heinous’ and to another mother, who is grieving just as
badly, ‘your child’s murder was just common.’
Speaking to the same class in
Scottsbluff, Bob Evnen, co-founder of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, stated
“these arguments about, ‘we don’t do it that often,” can just as easily be used
in service of the argument that we ought to do it more often.”
Evnen said he sometimes wonders, when
answering critics who point out the low number of state-sanctioned deaths, “if
we had three hangings every Saturday, would that be a satisfactory rate, in
order to take this argument away?”
“I’m not unhappy with the fact that
we’re very careful about when and how we impose it,” Evnen said. “I don’t think
that undermines the deterrence argument, based upon the studies that I’ve
seen.”
The topic of whether the death penalty
is useful for the families left behind after a murder was arose again in north
Omaha at Metropolitan Community College.
Student Akia Outerbridge took a
different tack, exploring the best way for devastated families to look at
capital punishment.
Outerbridge wondered if “when you put
somebody on death row and they (are executed) do you think that gives the
family closure?”
“I don’t think it’s the same for every
person.,” replied former State Attorney General Don Stenberg during the Omaha
forum. Stenberg found that while “there are some families opposed the death
penalty and don't want to see it carried out” he also saw other cases when
relatives believed the only justice is in taking the life of the killer.
Stenberg oversaw the three last
executions of death row inmates in Nebraska during the 1990s.
“The one I remember most was the
Willie Otey case and his victim was a young lady named Jane McManus,” Stenberg
told the group.
When she was murdered in her home in
1977, evidence presented at trial showed McManus had been sexually assaulted,
stabbed, strangled and beaten with a hammer.
Stenberg recalled he had several
meetings with Laura McManus, Jane’s sister where he “got to know her very well
because she wanted justice.”
Otey asked for a change of sentence
before a hearing at the state’s Pardon Board, where Stenberg was one of three
members who heard Laura McManus’ testimony “in support of her sister,” asking
the death sentence to maintained.
When it came to closure for Laura
McManus, Stenberg said “I know that she was very glad
to see justice done.”
Also reflecting on the idea of closure
was retiring Nebraska State Senator Colby Coash, who reversed his support for
capital punishment in recent years. He now feels the system provides true
justice to none of those left behind after a capital crime.
Responding to Overbridge, Colby asked
“your question is will we they get closure? Here's my answer,” he continued.
“We'll never know because (an execution) will never happen.”
“They’ll never know if they'll get
closure because their families’ killer isn’t going to be executed,” Coash said,
referring to the legal delays and inability of the state to find a legal supply
of the drugs needed to carry out an execution using lethal injection.
“We have victims' families out there
who want to move on with their life. They don't get closure either,” Coash told
the group. “Every so often they know there's an appeal and it hits the
newspaper and they get what they tell me it’s like reopening a wound.”
“I wish we had a system that gave both
of those family’s closure but we don't. We don't.”
Several of the "Classroom
Conversations" participants in Norfolk recall the 2002 bank robbery
that put three men on death row. They killed five people and left scars in the
community that shaped the discussion at Northeast Community College.
It’s what student Nichole Sullivan had
on her mind when she addressed Evnen and Dan Parsons, the representative of
Retain a Just Nebraska appearing before her class.
“First I want to make a comment that I
was in school eight blocks away from the bank shooting,” Sullivan said.
“The house across the street where they broke in and stole the vehicle
was across the road from my house.”
Then she asked: “It says in the Bible
an eye for an eye, what is your opinion on that?”
Parsons said many Nebraskans raised in
religious household respect on of the most basic tenants of the world’s
religions: to kill is wrong.
“I think you've seen an evolution of
opinions from faith leaders. I happen to come from a more Evangelical or non-denominational
background. People in my faith communities are beginning to change their
opinion on the death penalty. I happen to be pro-life. I think a lot of people
who are pro-life have struggled with this idea that how can I be for life in
one instance but against life in another instance?
Parsons noted “the Catholic church is
against the death penalty (and) you rarely see Catholic bishops take a strong
stand on a moral issue like this other than maybe abortion.”
Evnen disagreed with Parsons assessment. “I don't think that the Catholic church is opposed to the
death penalty.”
Evnen noted what while he, like
Parsons, is not Catholic either, he has read of archbishops declaring the death
penalty is “fundamental to the observance of the sixth commandment, which is
thou shalt not murder.”
He went on to argue that the Bible
“pretty clearly allows for the death penalty in certain instances.”
“I don't think that's
disputable. It seems to me that there's a strong Biblical impetus for the death
penalty,” Evnen
said. “There are moral, Biblical underpinnings to what
we're doing here and they find expression in the statutes of our state.”
The pair also spoke directly to those
trying to find a balance between pro-life camps.
Parsons noted he and others he knows
“struggle with this idea of death there is this conflict between the death
penalty and abortion.”
“How do we justify the state taking
the life of someone who admits guilt, “Parsons asked “but spend all this effort
to try to protect an innocent life that's not born.”
“I feel much better having landed now
for life for both of those individuals.”
Evnen replied that he didn’t see how
Parsons could “compare the innocence of a baby in the womb with a craven,
heinous, calculated killer. These are not the same case to me.”
“I don't have trouble making
the distinction between those two,” Evnen concluded. “I think if you
really are respectful of life then you will come to the conclusion that the
death penalty is an important thing for law enforcement to have.”
The discussions at the three community
colleges covered a variety of issues from the cost of the death penalty to
concerns about bias in who is given a death sentence versus life imprisonment.
There is more information about “Classroom
Conversations: Nebraska’s Death Penalty Vote” can be found on the project web
page.
Is The Death Penalty Moral? Advocates,
Opponents And Students Wrestle With The Question
Nebraska
death penalty repeal referendum: Here's what's at stake in the November 2016
vote
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