Nebraska lawmakers passed a bill May 20 to abolish the death penalty by a big enough margin to override a threatened veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts.
The measure passed 32–15 in the state’s one-chamber Legislature. It would replace the death penalty with life in prison.
If lawmakers override the expected veto, Nebraska would become the first conservative state to repeal the death penalty since North Dakota in 1973, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.
Although the Nebraska Legislature is formally a nonpartisan body, Republicans in practice hold 36 of the 49 seats.
In the final run-up to the vote, Ricketts issued a statement saying there was “overwhelming support” for keeping the death penalty, warning that its repeal would “give (the) most heinous criminals more lenient sentences.”
“This isn’t rhetoric,” he said in a statement. “This is reality.”
The opposition to capital punishment was spurred in part by a ruling from the Nebraska Supreme Court in 2008 that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional. The state then adopted lethal injection but, like many states, had problems acquiring the drugs.
The governor blamed the state’s inability to carry out executions on a “management problem” that he said he is committed to correcting.
Maryland was the last state to end capital punishment in 2013. Three other moderate to liberal states have done so in recent years: New Mexico, Illinois and Connecticut. The death penalty is legal in 32 states.
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