"Bruning confident state can restore death penalty," is by Grant Schulte of Associated Press, via the Omaha World-Herald. It's also available from the Lincoln Journal Star. Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning of this lengthy article:
Nebraska's attorney general said the state's corrections department has been too busy dealing with myriad problems to focus on resolving drug shortages that have halted executions in the state, which hasn't carried out the death penalty in 17 years.
Attorney General Jon Bruning said he's confident Nebraska will resume executions, but he thinks it will take a while before officials can work out a new approach using different drugs or a new supplier.
"I have a high degree of confidence that we'll have a workable death penalty in the future," said Bruning, who is leaving office in January. "Whether that's a year or two years from now, I can't say. But in the near future, there's no reason that Nebraska shouldn't have a functional death penalty."
Nebraska lost its only approved method to carry out executions when its supply of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic required under the department's rules, expired in December. The drug is no longer produced in the United States, and European Union countries are prohibited from selling the drug for use in capital punishment.
Nebraska's last execution was the electrocution of Robert E. Williams, for triple homicide, in 1997.
Of the 33 Nebraska inmates sentenced to death since 1973, three have been executed and 11 are on death row. One former inmate, Jeremy Sheets, was released in 2001 after his conviction was thrown out and prosecutors declined to retry him. The others have had their sentences overturned by court rulings, or died of suicide or natural causes.
Earlier coverage from Nebraska begins at the link.
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