Bill to allow vote to repeal Nebraska’s death penalty fails again to advance to floor debate

LINCOLN — A proposal seeking to repeal Nebraska’s death penalty failed to advance Wednesday, with one non-supporter citing voters’ overwhelming restoration of capital punishment at the polls in 2016.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee voted 3-4, with one senator present and not voting, to advance a proposed constitutional amendment that would put the issue of banning the death penalty on the ballot in November.

State Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha, who introduced Legislative Resolution 17CA, voted for advancement, along with fellow Omaha Sens. Justin Wayne and Wendy DeBoer.

Voting “no” were Sens. Caroyln Bosn of Lincoln, Barry DeKay of Niobrara, Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue and Teresa Ibach of Sumner. Bellevue Sen. Carol Blood was present and not voting.

Blood, who is a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 1st District, said that she is personally opposed to the death penalty but she knows her constituents support it. She said she has kept a sheet on her desk showing that her constituents supported restoring capital punishment by a 63%-37% margin in 2016.

“I represent District 3, not the district of Carol Blood,” the senator said, calling it a difficult vote.

She added that the memories of John Joubert, who was executed in 1996 for the abduction and murders of two Sarpy County boys, are still fresh in her district.

Five votes would have been needed to advance the proposal to debate by the full Legislature, which voted in 2015 to repeal capital punishment.

But repealing the death penalty has faced opposition ever since Nebraska voters, after an initiative petition drive funded primarily by the family of then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, voted to restore capital punishment in the 2016 election.

This year, the Judiciary Committee has been split, 4-4, on several issues, leading to several proposals failing to advance to floor debate. The committee has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

Currently, 27 states have the death penalty, but last year, only five states carried out executions — Texas, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama — according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Nebraska has 11 men on its death row but hasn’t carried out an execution since 2018, when double-murderer Carey Dean Moore was put to death via lethal injection. That was the state’s first execution in 21 years.

A bill to allow executions via nitrogen hypoxia, introduced by Central City Sen. Loren Lippincott, has not yet come up for a vote in the Judiciary Committee.