Later this week, Nebraska's unicameral legislature is scheduled to debate LB 36, which would authorize lethal injection as the state's method of execution. It's unclear whether LB 306, a repeal bill, will be taken up on the floor this year.
"Death penalty pits costs vs. closure, is Paul Hammel's report in the Omaha World-Herald. It appeared in the Sunday edition.
Howard Morton is a 78-year-old former jet fighter pilot and Korean War
veteran, who raised nine children with his wife of 53 years.
He knows the impact of violent crime first-hand — his oldest son, Guy, was murdered in 1970 and left under a pile of rocks in the Arizona desert. The case hasn't been solved.
Morton acknowledges he's one of the last guys you'd figure to favor repealing the death penalty. But over the past five years, he's been doing just that as part of a poster-carrying throng lobbying the Colorado Legislature.
The reason: cost.
Morton and his Denver-based group, Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, argue that the estimated $4 million a year his state pays to prosecute death-penalty cases could be better spent pursuing the 1,430 unsolved murders in Colorado.
"What difference does it make if you have a death penalty if you can't catch these people?" he asked. "It's a waste of money."
Some Nebraska lawmakers are making the same argument as the Legislature prepares to debate whether to replace the electric chair with lethal injection.
State Sens. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln and Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha have requested an estimate of how much the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has spent on death-penalty cases since 1973, when capital punishment was reinstated in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The request comes after two legislative fiscal notes showed no cost in switching the method of execution to lethal injection and no state cost savings in repealing the death penalty.
"That doesn't make sense," said Nantkes, an attorney who opposes capital punishment. "There has to be some costs."
She cited fiscal estimates in other states, including Kansas and North Carolina, that project it costs 70 percent more — up to $2.2 million more — to prosecute and otherwise handle a death-penalty case than for a noncapital punishment murder case.
"The heavy cost to innocent human lives" is the bigger consideration, said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, who sponsored the bill to change the method of execution to lethal injection.
"We're talking about unspeakable, horrific crimes that are so heinous that the behavior requires the ultimate sanction," Flood said. "The fact that the death penalty might be more costly than (life) incarceration does not carry the day."
Yet with budget crises rippling across the country, the issue has sparked new interest in death-penalty repeal bills, which were introduced this year in Nebraska and 10 other states. Thirty-five states currently have a death penalty. Iowa repealed its death penalty in 1965.
He knows the impact of violent crime first-hand — his oldest son, Guy, was murdered in 1970 and left under a pile of rocks in the Arizona desert. The case hasn't been solved.
Morton acknowledges he's one of the last guys you'd figure to favor repealing the death penalty. But over the past five years, he's been doing just that as part of a poster-carrying throng lobbying the Colorado Legislature.
The reason: cost.
Morton and his Denver-based group, Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, argue that the estimated $4 million a year his state pays to prosecute death-penalty cases could be better spent pursuing the 1,430 unsolved murders in Colorado.
"What difference does it make if you have a death penalty if you can't catch these people?" he asked. "It's a waste of money."
Some Nebraska lawmakers are making the same argument as the Legislature prepares to debate whether to replace the electric chair with lethal injection.
State Sens. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln and Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha have requested an estimate of how much the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has spent on death-penalty cases since 1973, when capital punishment was reinstated in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The request comes after two legislative fiscal notes showed no cost in switching the method of execution to lethal injection and no state cost savings in repealing the death penalty.
"That doesn't make sense," said Nantkes, an attorney who opposes capital punishment. "There has to be some costs."
She cited fiscal estimates in other states, including Kansas and North Carolina, that project it costs 70 percent more — up to $2.2 million more — to prosecute and otherwise handle a death-penalty case than for a noncapital punishment murder case.
"The heavy cost to innocent human lives" is the bigger consideration, said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, who sponsored the bill to change the method of execution to lethal injection.
"We're talking about unspeakable, horrific crimes that are so heinous that the behavior requires the ultimate sanction," Flood said. "The fact that the death penalty might be more costly than (life) incarceration does not carry the day."
Yet with budget crises rippling across the country, the issue has sparked new interest in death-penalty repeal bills, which were introduced this year in Nebraska and 10 other states. Thirty-five states currently have a death penalty. Iowa repealed its death penalty in 1965.
And:
Nordquist said Nebraska lawmakers need a more accurate fiscal estimate
to judge the worth of a death penalty, which would be reinstated if the
lethal injection measure, Legislative Bill 36, is passed.
"I certainly don't think it's cut and dried," said Nordquist, a Catholic who adheres to the church's stance that the death penalty is unnecessary in modern countries with adequate prisons.
"I certainly don't think it's cut and dried," said Nordquist, a Catholic who adheres to the church's stance that the death penalty is unnecessary in modern countries with adequate prisons.
Earlier coverage of the Nebraska Legislature is here. The legislative session will end June 4.
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