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If you SUPPORT the death penalty then vote
REPEAL to keep it.
The death penalty is used sparingly as just punishment for the most heinous of crimes - mass murders, serial killers, child killers and those who kill law enforcement officers. It is a deterrent, especially for prisoners serving life sentences who otherwise could kill a prison guard without consequence. And the death penalty protects us from evil that otherwise would threaten our families and communities. Don't believe death penalty opponents who say life in prison without parole is a viable alternative to the death penalty. In recent days actions by the courts and Legislature resulted in a life sentence imposed for the 1990 murder of a police officer in Nebraska was changed to a period of years making the killer eligible for parole in the future. Life does NOT mean life. And don't believe the outrageous suggestion that the death penalty costs $14.6 million annually in Nebraska. The Legislature's independent Fiscal Office weighed-in on the cost three times in 2015 with official statements indicating repeal of the death penalty would NOT result in cost savings. The $14.6 million figure is economic theory and has no basis in actual cost. Carefully consider this important decision and we hope you will join the majority of Nebraskans in voting to REPEAL LB 268 to keep the death penalty in Nebraska. |
Let us not forget Evonne Tuttle who was murdered with with 4
people in the Norfolk on September 26, 2002. Let us support the family members
by remembering the victim (and the other 4 of course) by voting repeal (DO NOT vote Retain) to save the
death penalty.
Let us hear from the
victim’s family members:
Two families.
Two victims. Two different views of Nebraska's death penalty.
by Bill Kelly, Senior Producer, NET News
November 3, 2016 - 6:45am
Over the
years the death penalty has divided the people with the most personal stake
possible in the issue: family members of the murder victims.
Having
watched the crimes, the trials, and years of delays in the executions, they
have reached very different conclusions about the merits of the death penalty.
During
the public hearings held in October by the Nebraska secretary of state, family
members touched by two different death penalty cases presented testimony.
THE
NORFOLK BANK MURDERS
In 2002
three men burst into a bank in Norfolk, Nebraska. In a matter of minutes they
had fled with money, leaving four bank employees and a customer dead. All three
killers were sentenced to death. To date, none have been executed.
The
daughter and mother of the customer killed that day, Evonne Tuttle, remain
strong advocates of maintaining the death penalty in Nebraska. Vivian Tuttle,
Evonne's mother, testified at the hearings in Omaha and Lincoln. Christine
Tuttle, Evonne's daughter, spoke in Kearney.
Vivian
Tuttle
The pain,
the sorrow, never goes away. I went to every single trial. I sat through every
one of them and I saw six different times my daughter get down on her knees,
bow her head, put her hands behind her back, and (Jose) Sandoval shot her in
the back of the head. I saw that six times, and that’s never going to go away.
That’s always going to be with me.
Yes, I
want these people to have the death penalty. The law of our land said it was
such a heinous, terrible crime, that they should have the death penalty. You
talk about the money? Let me tell you. My daughter’s blood that was spilled on
that bank floor was worth more than any of the money that it took to do any of
this.
Christine
Tuttle
I don’t
have any data. I don’t have any statistics. I don’t have any Bible verses. I
just have my story. As far as the price of the death penalty goes, there are
all different kinds of figures, but honestly, the price does not matter to me.
How much would just one more hug with my mom cost, or how much would just one
more Christmas or birthday cost? Some things you just can’t put a price on.
Capital punishment is an investment worth taking. These ten men on death row
have nothing to lose. I believe, if they had an opportunity to kill again, they
would. The only way this can never happen is for them to be executed.
MICHAEL
RYAN’S CULT MURDERS
The
deaths of two people at the hand of Michael Ryan remain one of the most bizarre
chapters in Nebraska criminal history. The names of the victims, 26-year old
James Thimm and 6-year old Rickie Stice are, to the disappointment of their
families, often overlooked.
Ryan lead
a small doomsday cult on a farm outside of Rulo, Nebraska. After Thimm
questioned the group's beliefs he was tortured to death on Ryan’s command. Ryan
was sentenced to death. He died on death row of brain cancer 30 years after the
murders took place.
Thimm’s
sister, Miriam, has opposed the death penalty. She spoke at the hearing in
Lincoln.
Miriam
Thimm Kelle
In
1985, my brother James, Jim to us, was tortured to death, and his killer,
Michael Ryan, was eventually sent to death row. I have seen, over and over, how
Nebraska’s penalty is a false hope to victims. When they sentence someone to
death, we sentence the family, too.
Michael
Ryan was sentenced to death over thirty years ago; at that time, my son was in
diapers. My son now has children of his own, and until last year, Michael Ryan
sat on death row, and when he died of cancer, the justice of execution that was
promised my family never came.
When we
were assured by authorities, over and over again, that his sentence would soon
be carried out, it breaks my heart to see how other families in our state are
hanging on to this false promise of an execution.
I would
give anything to go back in time, and change that death sentence to life
imprisonment. If that happened, my children would have grown up without seeing
their uncle’s killer become a celebrity, as he slowly worked his way through
the court system.
For “Classroom
Conversations: Nebraska’s Death Penalty Vote,” NET News brought
advocates from each side of the issue to answer questions from students
at Western Nebraska
Community College in Scottsbluff,Northeast Community College in Norfolk and Metropolitan Community College in
Omaha. These lively discussions are the foundation of a 30-minute television
program and additional web content you can find on the project
web site.
Some in
my family waited in vain for these decades for Michael Ryan to be executed.
Each year, their pain was compounded by the fact that the justice system failed
to deliver the justice that they were promised. Had we been given a sentence of
life without the possibility for parole, we would have left the legal system
behind thirty years ago, and be able to focus our energy on our family, and our
grief, and not the false promise of an execution. This is purgatory.
Some in
my family wished Michael Ryan executed; others didn’t. We should have been
united in remembering our loving memories of our brother, Jim, comforting one
another. This punishment created a rift in our family. Sadly, our case is not
unusual; Nebraska has not executed in almost twenty years, and we have one man
who has been sitting on our death row since 1980.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://netnebraska.org/article/news/1048637/two-families-two-victims-two-different-views-nebraskas-death-penalty
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| Sherman |
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| Waite |
Son, brother of
Anthony Garcia victim want justice of death penalty
Updated Nov 4, 2016
Shirlee
Sherman's brother and son say they know how she would feel about whether her
convicted killer, Anthony Garcia, should get the death penalty.
Jeff Sherman,
42, was a newspaper carrier in Omaha 33 years ago when John Joubert abducted
and stabbed to death Danny Joe Eberle, 13, of Bellevue and also a newspaper
carrier, and Christopher Walden, 12, of Papillion.
The
circumstances of the murders frightened the young mother, and her son remembers
that when Joubert was convicted of the murders she favored him being sentenced
to die in the electric chair.
Twenty-five
years after those boys were murdered, Shirlee Sherman was stabbed to death, in
2008, along with an 11-year-old boy, by a serial killer in Omaha.
Speaking
Wednesday in Lincoln, Jeff Sherman and his uncle Brad Waite, Shirlee's brother,
said they won't be satisfied unless their mother's killer is handed the same
fate as Joubert -- execution.
Garcia was
found guilty of four murders in Omaha a week ago. On Friday, a jury found that
his murders satisfied at least three aggravating factors necessary for a death
sentence: that he killed more than one person at the same time, killed to
conceal his identity, and the killings were especially heinous and cruel and
manifested exceptional depravity.
Garcia was
said to have killed Shirlee Sherman, Thomas Hunter and Roger and Mary Brumback
to get revenge for being fired from Creighton University Medical Center by
Thomas' dad, Dr. William Hunter, and Dr. Roger Brumback.
Waite said
the murders were "extremely heinous." His sister and the boy suffered
multiple stab wounds to their necks. The Brumbacks had multiple stab wounds and
Roger Brumback was also shot multiple times.
In the
courtroom, Jeff Sherman sat where he could see Garcia, who showed no emotion,
except to smile or smirk a few times, he said.
It was not
only a shock to get the news of his sister's death, Waite said, but then the
family waited years for a suspect to be developed. During that time other
people faced questioning by police and suspicion by family members, including
accusations aimed at the boyfriend of Jeff Sherman's sister.
Both men have
always supported the death penalty, they said, because there are crimes so
heinous and murderers who could never be rehabilitated. And the process to get
to a death sentence is extensive, Waite said.
"A
life sentence is just not a suitable punishment," Jeff Sherman
said.
If the
three-judge panel that must now decide Garcia's fate does not choose the death
penalty, he said, he will not be satisfied that justice was done.
"It'll
leave a very strong knot in my stomach for a very, very long time,"
he said.
It's
not a matter of closure, Waite said. It's a matter of justice.
"Somebody
that's stabbed 18 times in their neck, how do you get closure to that?"
he asked. "How can you forget that? This is
something that will be in our minds forever. You can't take it out, no matter
what happens to him."
Nebraska
voters will be given the chance on Tuesday to retain or repeal the decision the
Nebraska Legislature made in 2015 to eliminate the death penalty. Supporters of
the death penalty got enough signatures on a referendum petition to put the
question on the general election ballot.
"People
that are against the death penalty, I would like for them to sit in court with
us and view the crime scene photos and the autopsy photos, then give me an
explanation why this crime does not fit the death penalty,"
Waite said.
INTERNET SOURCE: http://journalstar.com/legislature/son-brother-of-anthony-garcia-victim-want-justice-of-death/article_388ac138-67e1-5ac9-84b3-68357e9f6840.html
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