Lawmakers in Nebraska have just voted to repeal the death penalty, amid a promised veto by the governor. Can they override him?
By a vote of 32-15 Nebraska lawmakers in the conservative state’s unicameral legislature have just voted to repeal their state’s death penalty. Governor Pete Ricketts (photo) is opposed to the repeal, and has vowed to veto the bill.
But the 50-year old newly-elected Republican may lose this battle. Lawmakers need only 30 votes to override his veto, and given they passed the bill with 32 votes, chances look strong for it to become law.
The last state to do away with capital punishment was Maryland in 2013, and if this bill becomes law, there would still be 31 states in the U.S. that have the death penalty.
The eleven death row inmates in the Cornhusker State may not be quite as excited as death penalty opponents. The bill, as the Huffington Post reports, is not retroactive.
As The New Civil Rights Movement’s Brint Crockett reported earlier this week, 144 people sitting on death row have been exonerated since 1973. A 2014 study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claimed that 1 in 25 of those sentenced to death is innocent.
Nebraska-based blog Aksarbent reports that “the state hasn’t executed a prisoner since 1997,” but “GOP Attorney General Doug Peterson, a conspicuous Christian, recently purchased a stash of lethal injection drugs in order to resume executions.”
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