A Nebraska coun­ty has raised prop­er­ty tax­es on its res­i­dents and asked the state leg­is­la­ture for a bailout to help pay a $28.1 mil­lion civ­il judg­ment it owes to six men and women wrong­ly con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penal­ty. The so-called ​“Beatrice Six” (pic­tured) suc­cess­ful­ly sued Gage County for offi­cial mis­con­duct that led to their wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the 1985 rape and mur­der of Helen Wilson. The large dam­ages award exceeds Gage County’s entire annu­al bud­get by $1 mil­lion. This year, Gage County Supervisors passed a prop­er­ty tax increase of 11.76 cents per $100 of val­u­a­tion — the max­i­mum increase allowed with­out putting the issue to vot­ers. The tax increase is expect­ed to gen­er­ate about $3.8 mil­lion next year, but coun­ty lead­ers wor­ry about its impact on res­i­dents and have announced plans to ask law­mak­ers and Governor Pete Ricketts for state fund­ing or a loan to help pay the civ­il judg­ment. Greg Lauby, a for­mer attor­ney who orga­nized res­i­dents to seek solu­tions to the prob­lem, said, ​“If we con­tin­ue on the path we’re on with no assis­tance from the state, it will dri­ve at least some farm­ers to bank­rupt­cy. We have home­own­ers who are strug­gling to put food on their table and clothe their chil­dren, and that’s an amount that will make a difference.”

Five of the Beatrice Six exonerees—James Dean, Kathy Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, and Tom Winslow—agreed to plea bar­gains or pled no con­test after pros­e­cu­tors threat­ened them with the death penal­ty. A sixth, Joseph E. White, main­tained his inno­cence, but was con­vict­ed at tri­al based on false tes­ti­mo­ny about his alleged involve­ment in the crime. The six were exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence in 2008 after spend­ing a com­bined 70 years in prison. The dam­ages were award­ed by a fed­er­al jury in 2016, just months before Nebraska vot­ers passed a ref­er­en­dum to over­turn the leg­is­la­ture’s 2015 abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty and rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The coun­ty is respon­si­ble for the pay­ment because pros­e­cu­tors are immune from lia­bil­i­ty for wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and the sher­iff involved in the case died in 2012. State Senator Ernie Chambers—one of the lead­ers of the death-penal­ty repeal efforts — said he oppos­es a state bailout. ​“This was strict­ly a coun­ty mat­ter,” Chambers said. ​“They made their bed, now they have to sleep in it.” He added that, despite wide­spread cov­er­age of the exon­er­a­tions, Gage County vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ed the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 2016. ​“They haven’t learned a thing,” he said. Ultimately, as the McCook (Nebraska) Gazette wrote in an October 8, 2018 edi­to­r­i­al, “[t]he Beatrice Six case and oth­ers like it spot­light the need to elect eth­i­cal and com­pe­tent sher­iffs and coun­ty attor­neys and hold them accountable.”

(Grant Schulte, Nebraska coun­ty to seek state help pay­ing $28.1M judg­ment, Associated Press, October 8, 2018; Editorial, Price of injus­tice comes home for coun­ty tax­pay­ers, McCook Gazette, October 8, 2018.) See Innocence and Costs.

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