Nebraska High Court Outlaws Electric Chair

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 06:51:00 AM EST
Tags: death penalty (all tags)

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The Nebraska Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the use of the electric chair to execute inmates constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts "intense pain and agonizing suffering," the court said. "Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes," Judge William Connolly wrote in the 6-1 opinion.

"Contrary to the State's argument, there is abundant evidence that prisoners sometimes will retain enough brain functioning to consciously suffer the torture high voltage electric current inflicts on a human body," Connolly wrote.

Nebraska is the only state in the country still using the barbaric method of execution. The legislature must now authorize another means before the state can put anyone to death.

Any chance there are any legislators in Nebraska who will say, "Choose Life, End the Death Penalty?"

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Nebraska High Court Outlaws Electric Chair | 12 comments (12 topical)

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This is heartening (5.00 / 4) (#1)
by phat on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 12:58:03 AM EST

I spent the better part of my life over the past few years working for this here in Nebraska. I don't work for Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty anymore. I help when I can. But they are doing amazing work now.

I was told I was crazy when I said, 4 years ago, that Nebraska would get rid of the death penalty in 5 years.

This is the beginning of the end of the death penalty in Nebraska and America.

I haven't called Bud Welch yet. I should have called him today.

He has worked so very hard for us here, as have so many others.

I'm very proud of my state today.

We have a fight ahead of us, but it will be won.

phat

: Phat (none / 0) (#5)
by PlayInPeoria on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 08:13:42 AM EST

Congrades and thank you for all your effort and dedication.
I've seen accidental electrocution and can't believe that anyone would do this to another human being.

: good show! i have alway also worried about (none / 0) (#9)
by hellothere on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 11:07:52 AM EST

the idea of "what the victim's family wants". i of course have two minds on it. on one side i can certainly see and understand that the family should and needs to be included. they need to have a say and be informed. on the other hand i am for following the law. i worry about the idea of vengeance. the idea of victim impact statements? on one hand i would like to see family members have their say and tell the doer what damage he has done. i just worry about giving people the idea that the family decides the doer's fate and it is done under the concept of vengeance. justice ideally should be impartial hence justice protrayed as blind. any thoughts on this?

It is a great development, (none / 0) (#3)
by scribe on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 06:19:39 AM EST

but let's remember the way the decision played out, because it's not a wholesale end of the death penalty in Nebraska.

The Court prohibited the use of the electric chair as being cruel and unusual, under their State constitution - which is clearly intended to preclude S.Ct. review. [A nice twist, since their state constitutional provision at issue is textually the same as the 8th Amendment.]
Then, the Court decided that the defendant's sentence - execution - would remain in place, but wouldbe stayed.
The stay is pending the State coming forward with a new method ofexecution which is not cruel and unusual.

All in all a good day, but not the end of the fight.

True - (none / 0) (#6)
by scribe on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 09:22:39 AM EST

though even if the state should come up with a new method, they still have to get it past the Nebraska S.Ct. Reading the opinion indicates they are applying a pretty stringent test which, briefly summarized, is something like this: No marks on the body and no disfigurment, no conscious pain, suffering or awareness, no medical personnel involved (they seem to be respecting the ethical bounds the medical associations impose against participating in executions).

Sounds to me like they'll have to go to LWOP as a substitute for the death penalty. This is just fine by me. Equating death and LWOP will lead, in any intellectually honest minds, to recognizing that LWOP is no different than executing the prisoner. The prisoner will die in the custody of the state because the state wants him to die. Eventually, that will militate for ending LWOP, too.


i just have one question. what is your (none / 0) (#10)
by hellothere on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 11:10:12 AM EST

feeling about the bundy's of the world? ideally the opportunity to reform and lead a productive live would be the way to go. but then again there are those who one could certainly claim can't be reformed.


: Then you incarcerate them permenently (none / 0) (#12)
by Dadler on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 03:02:10 PM EST

Execution merely serves to lower us all to the standards that led to a conviction in the first place.

: perhaps, i was just asking due to some (none / 0) (#14)
by hellothere on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 07:28:10 PM EST

comments i saw about being sentenced to life without parole. thanks

Credit where credit is due (none / 0) (#7)
by Peter G on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 10:53:06 AM EST

Not only to the abolitionists in Nebraska, but also to Andy Warhol -- that's his painting "Electric Chair" (1963) that you're using for the art.

it's kind of ironic, actually. (none / 0) (#8)
by cpinva on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 11:04:17 AM EST

thomas edison (a proponent of DC distribution), suggested the use of electricity (AC, created by rival george westinghouse) as a more "humane" means of execution. his real purpose was to show how dangerous AC was, for just the very reasons cited by judge connolly.

edison's was, of course, a commercial concern; he wanted the country using DC, which he had invented the means of generating and distributing. we all know how that turned out, the electric chair notwithstanding.

i wonder if he'd be pleased to know that, nearly a hundred years later, the judiciary is finally seeing "the light"?

: Not only are they (none / 0) (#11)
by scribe on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 01:31:19 PM EST

"Seeing the light", but in this opinion they referred to the adoption of the electric chair in the belief it was more humane, the lack of scientific support for it then, and the empirical proof that is was not being humane. They appear to be requiring a higher standard from the replacement method.

Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish (none / 0) (#15)
by cag1970 on Sat Feb 09, 2008 at 09:20:37 PM EST

That Nebraska decided to get rid of its electric chair is a good thing. But events in recent days show that we've still got a long way to go to get the death penalty off the books there and in other states.

The sexist nature of the death penalty reared its ugly head recently in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, when Lisa Green was sentenced to life in prison for starting a fire that killed her children. I mean, this woman literally roasted her children, and the jury was deadlocked over what sentence to give this woman. To me, if there was a crime that deserved death, this was it.

But therein lies the problem. Juries don't make decisions in death-penalty cases based on facts. They rely too much on emotional appeals, victim impact statements and even defendant reactions to determine sentences. That's not right.

(As a side note, here's the victim-impact statement I have in mind for just such an occasion: My (insert relationship here) was killed. The impact to me is that (so-and-so) is no longer here. Unless you have a plan to bring them back, sentence according to the facts of law, not the subjectivity of your emotions. Thank you.)

In Horry County, South Carolina, a jury recently used the lack of reaction of Louis Winkler in court against him in their sentencing. He was convicted of killing his estranged wife, while awaiting trial on charges that he had kidnapped and raped her previously.

So where is the justice for the two little kids who died in that fire? Don't their lives mean something? And what's up with a society that doesn't have the guts to hold women just as accountable as men for their crimes? It's an insult, acutally--women have fought long and hard to be able to do the same things men do, and have been very successful. But until juries in capital cases have the guts to punish women like they do men, women's lib will have been for naught, and the death penalty will continue to be what it is--a sexist, racist, politically motivated tool of injustice.