Nebraska Exonerees Awarded $28 Million, Prosecutor Says Case Made Him Oppose Death Penalty

A fed­er­al court jury has award­ed six Nebraska exonerees (pic­tured, at their exon­er­a­tion) $28 mil­lion in dam­ages for offi­cial mis­con­duct that led to their wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the 1985 rape and mur­der of Helen Wilson. 

The ​“Beatrice Six,” as the group came to be known, were false­ly accused of the killing and threat­ened with the death penal­ty. Five of the defen­dants—James Dean, Kathy Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, and Tom Winslow—agreed to plea bar­gains or pled no con­test to avoid pos­si­ble death sen­tences. The sixth — Joseph E. White — demand­ed a jury tri­al, and was con­vict­ed. All six were exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence test­ed in 2008. 

On July 6, the jury found that the Gage County, Nebraska Sheriff’s Office had been reck­less in its inves­ti­ga­tion and had fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence. The $28 mil­lion dam­ages award exceeds the entire annu­al bud­get of Gage County by $1 mil­lion, and the coun­ty does not have an insur­ance pol­i­cy to cov­er court judg­ments result­ing from law enforcement misconduct. 

At a press con­fer­ence on July 8, Randall Rintour, the Gage County pros­e­cu­tor who reopened the Beatrice Six case in 2008, said the case had changed his views on the death penal­ty. ​“It hap­pened right here in our back­yard. We can’t say it’s not pos­si­ble to make a mis­take because we did, we made a huge one,” he said. ​“Our abil­i­ty to exe­cute all the … mur­der­ers we can is not worth the death of one inno­cent indi­vid­ual at the hands of the state.” 

State Sen. Burke Harr, a for­mer Douglas County deputy pros­e­cu­tor, joined Rintour in urg­ing Nebraskans to retain the state’s repeal of the death penal­ty, which is the sub­ject of a November ref­er­en­dum. Sen. Harr, one of 30 leg­is­la­tors who vot­ed in favor of repeal, said, ​“The death penal­ty is just that, it’s for­ev­er. There’s no coming back.”