Lincoln Journal Star: Editorial, 11/17: Don't botch an execution here

[Stefanie Faucher]

http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-don-t-botch-an-execution-here/article_9947d29b-1cf5-5ea1-8d8e-dd4feba591af.html

Lincoln Journal Star
November 17, 2014

Editorial, 11/17: Don't botch an execution here

By the Journal Star editorial board

Nebraska’s elected officials ought to pay heed to the warning delivered in Nebraska recently by former Oregon prison warden Frank Thompson.

Thompson, who oversaw two executions in Oregon, warned that a botched execution like those that happened in Oklahoma and Arizona could be repeated in Nebraska.

That warning is pertinent in light of the incompetency that has been revealed lately in the Nebraska Corrections Department.

Correction officials have miscalculated release dates, failed to seek commitment for Nikko Jenkins before he was released from prison and created a furlough program despite a warning from the department’s attorney that it was illegal.

Attorney General Jon Bruning referred to correction officials as the “gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”

A department riddled with this many problems should not be entrusted with carrying out the state’s solemn duty under the law to put an inmate to death.

Thompson is a former supporter of capital punishment. His experience in the two executions he oversaw in the 1990s turned him into an opponent of the death penalty. He spoke last week in several Nebraska towns as a guest of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The botched execution in Oklahoma to which Thompson referred dragged on for 45 minutes. The cocktail of chemicals administered to inmate Clayton Lockett apparently failed to kill him because of a misplaced IV tube. Physicians called off the execution, but Lockett, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 19-year-old, died of a heart attack after he appeared to writhe in pain.

Oklahoma officials have since called off two other scheduled executions to review procedures. A lawsuit is pending.

Nebraska has 11 people on death row, but has not executed a killer since 1997. The state currently does not have a supply of one of the lethal drugs it needs. Bruning, who leaves office in January, said it will be at least a year before the state could conduct an execution.

That’s not enough time to fix all the problems in this troubled department.

The best thing for the state to do, as the Journal Star editorial board has said in previous editorials, is for the state to repeal the death penalty. Even in the best of circumstances government cannot be trusted to administer the death penalty fairly and with complete assurance it is not putting to death an innocent person.

Even if the Legislature is not willing to take that step, Nebraska’s elected officials at the very least should impose a moratorium on further executions until competency is restored to the corrections department.

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Stefanie Faucher
Communications Director
8th Amendment Project
sfau...@8thamendment.org
Mobile 510.393.4549
8thamendment.org