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Why Oppose the Death Penalty?
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NEBRASKA: IT’S TIME TO RE-EVALUATE THE DEATH PENALTY!
Click here to sign the petition!
Nebraska has a long history of moving away from the death penalty. In 1979, the Nebraska Legislature was the first in the country to pass a bill to end the death penalty. Again in 1999, Nebraska was the first state to pass a bill placing a moratorium on executions. Both of these attempts to re-evaluate our state’s death penalty were met by a governor’s veto. These efforts to address the application and fairness of Nebraska’s death penalty were a good idea in the 1970s, the 1990s, and are an even better idea today.
Whether one supports, opposes, or is uncertain about the use of the death penalty, serious questions remain about the system's fairness, cost, and effectiveness.
In 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared our only method of execution, the electric chair, unconstitutional. A year later, the Legislature changed the state's method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection over the objections of legal authorities, medical experts, judges, law enforcement officers, and the families of those who have lost loved ones to murder. The hastily drafted and adopted measure to implement lethal injection remains open to legal challenges that will result in numerous appeals, at great cost to taxpayers.
Last year, as Nebraska began to face huge budget deficits, the Legislature refused to study the cost Nebraska's death penalty system. However, we can easily predict the outcome of such a study--more than a dozen states have found that having the death penalty is up to 10 times more expensive than replacing it with a sentence of life without parole. Some of the newest and strongest opponents of executions include police officers, prosecutors, and judges, who remain philosophically in favor of capital punishment but see it as a waste of precious resources the could be used toward proven public safety programs. One does not need to be opposed to the death penalty to see that there are far better ways to spend our increasingly limited resources.
Nebraska has now set a date of June 14 to execute Carey D. Moore, who has been on death row for over 30 years. This would be the first execution held in Nebraska in more than 13 years (UPDATE: Moore execution postponed, Omaha World Herald). We must ask why the state is pursuing this faulty course despite so many unanswered questions.
Why the rush to test a new method of execution? Why spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars seeking an execution when the state is in the throes of a budget crisis, compelled to slash funding for education, health care, and public safety? Why continue this broken, bloated government program?
We, the undersigned, call on the State of Nebraska to re-evaluate its use of the death penalty. If not now, when, and at what cost to our state’s future?
SIGN THE PETITION HERE!
Please send this petition to your friends, family, and coworkers!
*Read more about the history of Carey Dean Moore's case in this Amnesty International Urgent Action 148/11: Nebraska Looks to First Execution in 14 Years
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My Journey into the Movement
By: Stacy Anderson, Executive Director
I pulled to the side of the road. I could no longer see through the tears. They had found her body. This girl who I had mentored for a few years, had gone missing, and I had been holding out hope they would find her alive. My grief gave way to rage as an acquaintance from my high school years turned himself in and confessed to her murder. I wanted him dead!
Still, the teachings of my faith started running through my brain. Vengeance is not mine. Forgive as I’ve been forgiven. Love my enemies. I was conflicted to say the least.
Growing up in Nebraska, in a conservative household, I was taught to believe if you killed someone, you should be killed…simple as that...it’s Justice! However, as I read up on the subject, I was horrified to learn the truth about the death penalty in the U.S. It is a painfully broken system, full of racial/class bias, innocence issues, and arbitrary judicial technicalities. Even though I had received my bachelor’s degree in political science and worked at the Legislature, I still had not learned about the complexity of capital punishment.
I could no longer be in favor of the death penalty. I could not even stay on the fence. I had to take a stand against it. My faith had also taught me that complacency in the face of injustice is just as bad as carrying out the injustice myself. So, I joined the movement. I started donating to NADP, talking to friends and family and writing to government officials. Not long after I joined the NADP board, we learned that Jill Francke would be leaving to go to grad school in Chicago.
After the interview process, I was humbled and thrilled to be selected as the next Executive Director. I could not be coming in at a better time in the Nebraska movement. As Nebraska continues to struggle financially and the state seems to be cutting corners to get the lethal injection drugs needed, Nebraskans are asking if the death penalty is worth our time and money.
In addition to the changes in the legal/political landscape, Jill has done amazing work in her time at NADP, building an incredibly sturdy base for the future. I am forever indebted to her for carrying on the tradition of hard work that was started in 1981 at NADP. It is nice to know I am not starting from square one, but coming alongside a group of people who have invested much into this movement to get us to where we are today.
I hope to carry on this work as seamlessly as possible, and keep the momentum rolling toward abolition! I also hope to forge new partnerships and coalitions with people who are currently indifferent about and uninvolved in the movement. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to meeting and working with many of you in the coming months.
