Nebraska Repeals Death Penalty
Gov. Pete Ricketts, a first-term Republican, had vetoed legislation to repeal Nebraska’s death row. Today, Nebraska became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty when lawmakers boldly voted 30-19 to override the governor’s veto.
Nebraska has not executed anyone since 1997, and one of the 11 inmates on its death row died this week in prison, bringing those on death row in Nebraska to 10. Prisoner, Michael Ryan, had spent 30 years Nebraska’s death row, convicted for the 1985 cult killings of two people.
The news comes at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is in position to issue a major decision on capital punishment by lethal injection. The lethal injection has been used, and botched, and those states trying to get the concoction are having problems obtaining it.
“I’m not surprised that conservatives led the death penalty repeal effort in Nebraska. I think this will become more common,” Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty said in a statement, adding that the death penalty violates what he called “the core conservative principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and valuing life.”
Meanwhile, there’s a flood in Texas. (On a serious note, our condolences to those who have lost family, and best wishes for survivors.)
Posted on 05/27/2015, in Potpourri, Uncategorized and tagged death penalty, Nebraska, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas flood. Bookmark the permalink. 26 Comments.
We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident 
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
LikeLike
Thanks for the reblog, dear friend. I see you’re on a roll today on Twitter.
LikeLike
The stupidity is overwhelming…people defending #TPP & Barack pushing it. Dumbasses. Loved your post by the way.
LikeLike
I get lost in the acronyms. TPP is a pipeline, right? I thought Obama had abandoned that.
LikeLike
Trans-Pacific Partnership. Don’t feel bad, Xena. I had to look it up too!
LikeLike
Linda,
DUH! Shows you how much I keep up with national politics. Since a presidential election is near, I pay more attention and become more inquisitive.
LikeLike
TPP is the trade agreement being done in secret for the pacific rim nations and USA. It is 500 times worse than NAFTA which Clinton pushed on America. Barack is in the pockets of big business/corporations. It’s all being done in secret, Warren & Sanders are dead against TPP as are other economic experts.
LikeLike
Thanks. You explained it much better than I could. I knew “sorta” what it was, but not much more than that
LikeLike
I saw Bernie Sanders on MSNBC this morning and thought, “Damn! I hope he gets the nomination!”
LikeLike
Is that like the deal where American companies moved to Taiwan putting millions of Americans out of work?
LikeLike
Linda, you’re the second person I’ve heard from who said they are hoping that Sanders is nominated. I won’t vote for Hillary in the primary. Too well, I remember how she attacked Obama with criticism that was later used by Palin.
LikeLike
I shouldn’t be surprised that Duval County Florida made the ‘cut’. I had no idea such an organization existed the the GOP world as Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.
The death penalty serves no purpose. I doubt it’s ever deterred anyone from committing a crime.
Love the SRV by the way!!
LikeLike
Mindmyme, right. The death penalty hasn’t stopped murder.
There’s a video of SRV with Albert King doing Flood in Texas, but it’s a bit too long for the blog. 🙂
LikeLike
not to mention the hundreds of people released from prison, even from death row, when it’s found they never committed the the crime anyway.
LikeLike
Right Mindyme. We know too that some, after execution, have been found not guilty due to DNA or other evidence. The case of Rolando Cruz in Illinois shook the very foundation for the death penalty in Illinois. The State almost executed an innocent man.
LikeLike
Yay, Nebraska. I’m guessing – and should read up – but guessing that Republican strategy is more financial than compassionate, since the death penalty is far more expensive to administer than life in prison. But hey, whatever works. I hope all of the US will emerge from the dark ages in this regard soon. Compassion is revolution.
LikeLike
Two sides, you are correct. Republican strategy is more financial. Compassion? That’s something we have hoped and pushed for a long time, and something I hope to see take place in my life time. It’s actually a spiritual basis for me personally. This country has a history that gives it bad karma. It’s time for this country to repent.
LikeLike
The United States should get rid of the death penalty all together of course unless its under extreme circumstances such as an act of terror or something. Other than that, there is no real need for the death penalty 1 it cost the tax payers tons of money considering the appeals that are filed for many years before their put down.
Then you factor in the cost of housing and feeding only to kill these people in the end I mean what sense does it make to feed house and cloth someone for 20 or 30 years only to kill them?
and finally the stuff used isnt always exactly the most humane way to put someone down I am not saying they should have an easy ride but as a society we must show compassion if we are to tout to the rest of the world how great we are as a Nation.
.
LikeLike
I agree totally
LikeLike
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment. The decision addressed several constitutional amendments and caused the states to rewrite their death penalty statutes. That is when the states wrote “aggravating and mitigating” factors into their laws for the death penalty. Florida was the first state to do so. The discretion statutes were approved SCOTUS in 1976.
Here’s a link to the history of the death penalty.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is some good news. I realize that some of them only felt this way not out of any kind of human compassion or passionate belief in life but only for the sake of cost, but it is a start.
LikeLike
Wounded woman testifies in Nevada about trespass killing
http://news.yahoo.com/wounded-woman-testifies-nevada-trespass-shooting-183338964.html
I just saw this & I’m struck by the way AP’s reporting it. the victims were actually committing a crime. the victims were actually on drugs. the killer was actually on his own property. the prosecution is actually treating both victims like victims. the prosecutor is bringing in the killer’s prior statements from years earlier- which means the judge allowed them to.
AP mentions that the case involves SYG laws & the first aggressor rule. I don’t know what the prosecutor is going to or has said about the initial aggressor rule but it reminds me of the kangaroo corruption of zimmerman’s trial & the fact that initial aggressor wasn’t applied in his case even more egregious.
Oh did I mention the victims are white? or at least the surviving victim is & the killer was arrested & charged & prosecuted without an international uproar or 3million ppl having to demand it.
just sayin’
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A female trespasser who survived a shooting in a vacant Nevada duplex testified Wednesday that the property owner entered the unit and opened fire without provocation, wounding her three times and killing a man on the floor next to her.
Janai Wilson testified in Washoe District Court in Reno before prosecutors rested their case against Wayne Burgarello on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Wilson broke into tears as she recalled hearing at least six gunshots in the rundown rental unit in Sparks while she huddled beneath a comforter, fearing the shooter would kill her, too.
“It seemed like just one after another — bang, bang, bang, bang,” Wilson said. “There was a slight break, nothing very long, but a slight pause in between.”
Burgarello, 74, has said he fired in self-defense when he killed 34-year-old Cody Devine and seriously wounded Wilson on Feb. 13, 2014.
Neither trespasser had a gun, but Burgarello told police Devine’s arm “came up like a gun.” His defense attorney said Burgarello may have mistaken a black flashlight found at the scene for a firearm.
View gallery
Wayne Burgarello listens as Janai Wilson, the shooting …
Wayne Burgarello listens as Janai Wilson, the shooting survivor and the prosecution’s key witnes …
Two neighbors testified Wednesday that Burgarello told them years earlier that he might arm himself and wait for people responsible for repeatedly vandalizing and burglarizing the vacant duplex.
“He told me, ‘I’m going to be waiting inside with a gun,'” Kevin Morgan said.
The defense is scheduled to call witnesses Thursday, with closing arguments planned Friday in the case that highlights Nevada’s “stand your ground” law. It allows deadly force against attackers who pose an imminent threat, regardless of whether they are armed, but specifies the shooter cannot be the initial aggressor.
Wilson, 30, said she met Devine the night before the shooting at a casino. She said he offered to give her a ride to pick up a discarded table to take to the abandoned duplex, where she had lived off and on for three years and was trying to establish squatter’s rights by listing the address on her driver’s license.
Wilson said she injected methamphetamine at the duplex, but Devine didn’t because he couldn’t find a vein. She said she was later awakened by what sounded like someone crashing through the front door, followed by an angry voice saying, “What are you doing in my house?”
.. View gallery
Janai Wilson shows the prosecutor the bullet scars …
Janai Wilson shows the prosecutor the bullet scars on her arm as she testifies at the Washoe County …
Wilson said Devine replied, “We were just sleeping.”
Wilson said she looked up and saw Burgarello in the bedroom doorway with a gun.
“I realized it was my responsibility to talk to the guy, so I looked up to respond to him,” Wilson said. “I saw him with a gun, and shoot Cody. He raised it and shot. I screamed.”
Devine was shot five times, once through the skull. Wilson said the second shot hit her leg. She was also shot in the arm and stomach.
“I didn’t move at all. I was scared,” she testified.
She soon heard another man who sounded like he was outside the duplex ask, “What’s going on in there?” She said the first voice answered, “They’re in my house and I shot them.”
Lying motionless, Wilson said she heard the heavy breathing of the first man returning to the bedroom and began to worry her “breathing was just as heavy as his and he’d know I was still alive — and that he wouldn’t want me alive.”
She said she knew she was trespassing but Devine didn’t.
“It was not his fault we were there,” she said, wiping away tears.
LikeLike
oh gawd, so horribly sad.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is an interesting case. Thanks for sharing it, Shannon. It deserves to be followed so we know the decision.
In some states, of owners of the property who do not reside in it cannot lie in wait for trespassers. If they should happen to walk in and find trespassers, they are suppose to call law enforcement. In general, that leads to law enforcement throwing the owners to the civil court for eviction.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, the owner knew ppl were hanging around the property & decided to take not only the law into his own hands, but someone’s life too. You’d think these ppl forgot what police are actually for!
And what do we expect when we see police killing anyone & getting away with it by making up whatever dumbass BS story they want?
Cuz these angry idiots are looking at a trained police officer, in a bullet proof vest, armed with multiple weapons & 5 of his fellow gang members backing him up as an example when he says he NEEDED to shoot an 85yo WW2 veteran CUZ ” I’ve never been so scared in my whole life!”
If police officers can be judge, jury & executioners, these gunsuckers think they can too: “its my right, they’re on my property &/or they’re bothering me in a place I’m allowed to be” Monkey see monkey do.
And let’s face it, what else are they supposed to do with that gun they’ve been lugging around all this time?
LikeLike
Shannon, I think you’ve made a good point. Someone has to lead by example, particularly when it involves guns and citizens. If law enforcement kills and justifies it based on the victim being a burden on society, and their own fear, then gun-toting citizens think they can do the same.
LikeLiked by 1 person