Days after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the elec­tric chair was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, a Lincoln Journal Star edi­to­r­i­al urged the state to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty: ​“Instead of rush­ing to pass a new means of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the Legislature should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to final­ly get rid of the death penal­ty.” Nebraska was the only state to retain the elec­tric chair as its sole means of exe­cu­tion. The paper not­ed that it was the right time to take a broad­er look at the death penal­ty. ​“With the advent of more DNA test­ing, errors in send­ing peo­ple to death row were shown to be far more fre­quent than most peo­ple believed.” Hence, the paper con­clud­ed, ​“the time is ripe to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state.”

The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that accord­ing to a poll by Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty, 51% of Nebraskans favor a repeal of the death penal­ty if it is replaced with a sen­tence of life with­out parole and resti­tu­tion to the victim’s estate. Last year, a bill that would allow for life in prison or life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole as a sen­tence for first-degree mur­der, intro­duced by Sen. Ernie Chambers, failed by only one vote.

The last exe­cu­tion to take place in Nebraska occurred in 1997.
(“Abolish the death penal­ty in Nebraska,” Lincoln Journal Star, February 10, 2008). See Editorials.

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