That's the title of an AP dispatch, via Sunday's Fremont Tribune. LINK
But it is now uncertain whether Lotter and the nine other men on Nebraska's death row will ever be executed following a ruling by the state Supreme Court.
The February ruling that electrocution _ the state's only means of execution _ is cruel and unusual punishment has debate raging among the lawyers involved on the 10 death-row cases: Can an inmate sentenced to die in the electric chair be executed by another means if the state changes the law?
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning says yes.
"They're still sentenced to death," Bruning said recently. "Their punishment remains death and the punishment has not changed."
Attorneys for the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy disagree.
Not only does the law specify electrocution, many of the actual sentencing orders say that the killers will die by a current of electricity, said James Mowbray, chief counsel for the commission.
Nebraska law says the punishment of death "in all cases, shall be by causing to pass through the body of the convicted person a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death; ... A crime punishable by death must be punished according to the provisions herein made and not otherwise."
The state Supreme Court said repeatedly in its ruling that it did not strike the death penalty _ just electrocution as the method.
"If someone tells you with confidence that they know how this will come out, you should get an ounce of what they're smoking," said Bob Schopp, a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who specializes in criminal law and capital punishment.
And:
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says he doesn't want to rush.
Before pushing to switch the state's execution method, Heineman waited until the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lethal injection in April in a Kentucky case.
Heineman has asked the Nebraska attorney general to look into the possible methods of execution, a process he says could take several months. Lethal injection is the most likely, although firing squad, hanging and the gas chamber could be options.
The governor has the power to call state senators back for a special session to try to change the law this year.
But Heineman said he probably won't.
"They know that it would be pointless," said Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the Legislature's staunchest death penalty opponent.
He has ambushed bills to change the method for years, because he was convinced electrocution eventually would be declared unconstitutional.
But Chambers will be term-limited out of office at the end of the year, and Heineman knows that the road will be smoother without him in the way.
The longer the delay, said attorney Jerry Soucie, the more questions.
"The Legislature had an opportunity to do something this session and has elected not to," said Soucie, who works with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy. "The governor could call a special session and has elected not to. How long can the Legislature and executive branch do nothing before the courts intervene?"
Earlier coverage of the issue in Nebraska is here.
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