Kent noted that the Nebraska legislature is considering whether to override the Governor's veto of a bill abolishing capital punishment. Kent observes that death penalty retentionists would advance their cause by proposing solutions to the practical problems in carrying out executions, prominently among them manufactured procedural delays in post-sentence litigation.
I suggest that Nebraska legislators ask themselves this: Do we, and do the people of this state, really want a future jury never to be able to impose the death penalty? Never, no matter what the facts?
When Tsarnaev strikes and shreds a little boy to bleed to death in his father's arms, do we want never?
When McVeigh strikes, and wipes out 19 toddlers in the day care center, do we want never?
When an ISIS wannabe strikes an elementary school and starts slitting throats, do we want never?
When a psychopathic killer already serving life strikes in prison and kills his guards, do we want never?
When you buy "never," you buy a morally disarmed future you cannot possibly know.
Bill, the Tsarnaev example shows perfectly that Nebraska has only said "never" for the expense in its state courts -- the feds still can (and surely would) bring a capital case in the first three examples that you give.
The fourth one, though, always gives me pause in this setting and is why I generally have a disaffinity for abolition.
Doug --
First, I would like to see a state referendum to see what Nebraskans really think.
Second, the state shouldn't say never even on account of the expense in state court. How can anyone know that there will NEVER be a case so horrible that the citizens will wish they had the death penalty? And expense can be cut back anyway, as Kent points out.
Third, the Tsarnaev case is unusual in that federal jurisdiction is proper. In the great majority of murder cases, including most of the truly horrible ones, the state will not be able to count on the feds to bail it out of its short-sightedness.
Fourth and relatedly, an ISIS wannabe is just that -- a wannabe. The want could extend no farther than just thinking Amerika stinks, but without any defined terrorist connection, and thus making federal involvement very problematic at best.
Decency evolves: Bill and Doug, to my mind plenty of jurisdictions manage just fine without the death penalty. Given the inevitability of uncorrected error and the moral considerations involved in government homicide of individuals in state custody, I applaud the decision of the Nebraska Legislature. If my father were still alive he would be proud of this change in his native state, as my paternal cousins are today.
If you are proud of today's vote, were you ashamed of Californians' vote in 2012 to retain the death penalty? Are you ashamed of the jurors who voted to give Tsarnaev the death penalty? Of the jurors in the McVeigh case?
The vote in California was close and I think the voters in the State adopted a less wise policy choice than the legislators in Nebraska.
Bill, it will be interesting to see if anyone tries to referendum the NE repeal of the death penalty.
On your other points, the issues is whether preserving the DP in theory is worth the high taxpayer costs of having it practice, especially if administrators in the state seem disinclined to use it much. Given that the feds can (and likely will upon request) find a way pick up extreme cases, I think the NE legislature made a wise choice for the pocketbooks of taxpayers. But I share your interest in letting taxpayers make that choice directly.