Krusin' the Capitol
By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse
Special Session #3
First Week
November 10, 2002
Hi
What a downer. We have 49 full-grown adults, meeting for two weeks, to
figure out how to kill someone. For the first week we are limited to one
hour a day because there is nothing else to do. And the Judiciary Committee,
locked in some room, day and night part of the time, is not likely to be able
to sort out what would be best to do.
For those out of the local news loop, the governor has called us into special
session on the death penalty with a limit of two subjects: for sentencing,
change the procedure; for the means, add the alternative of lethal injection
to the present electric chair.
The first we are likely to do, though it is VERY complicated. The problem is
simple: the (Federal) Supreme Court has ruled that a jury must decide if
aggravating circumstances were present, which would inform the judge in
deciding if a death sentence was appropriate. (The judge of course takes
other circumstances into account in the decision.) In Nebraska law, judges
determine aggravating circumstances as well as the final penalty. So, we
must rewrite jury law as well as judge law, and make them fit.
We will try as we want to be in conformity with federal law. However, so
many voices are being raised in how to do this that, in the opinion of
several attorneys, we will simply add to the l-o-n-g list of appeals. Which
adds to present frustration and adds greatly to future costs. We are short
on $$, remember.
One example. The Attorney General says we do not need a special session,
since the judge could send the jury back into session, after a guilty
verdict, to determine if there were aggravating circumstances. Defense
attorneys rub their hands in glee. If the jury is to consider whether this
guy is a jerk, his attorney wants to start on the defense on day #1 of the
trial. Failure to have provided for that is grounds for appeal, they say.
So we come to special session, hoping to avoid that, and the governor's bill
we are asked to adopt keeps it up. He wants punishment after the fact, to
make the public happy. The bill states this is a PROCEDURAL change, not
SUBSTANTIVE, and therefore can apply to murders already committed. Besides
the 4 murders in the Norfolk bank robbery we have 37 cases in Nebraska,
someplace in process. Defense attorneys are quite happy. It could work, but
certainly provides more grounds for appeal.
Our second instruction is to add lethal injection. The problem with the
electric chair is that it has been considered to be "cruel and unusual
punishment" (Federal law says we may kill, but not torture.) The problem
with lethal injection is that it is more cruel and unusual than the chair.
On the Web, put your Google in gear and type in "Botched Executions." You
will find 34 in the past 20 years: electric chair - 10; gas - 2; lethal
injection - 22. Physicians and medical personnel may not participate in any
of these, but they have particular objection to lethal. It uses a medical
method designed to provide health - to take life. Very offensive.
Lethal has taken up to two hours to find a vein. "Torture?" Or the vein
found goes to the hands, not to the heart. Or the offender is allergic to
the drug, causing violent seizures, flailing, fear. In one, the needle
popped out and the offender had to call the team back in from behind the
curtain to try again. And collapsed veins. Ruth cannot be executed in this
way. A great relief. The blood bank sent her home after over an hour of
poking. Cruel and unusual? They told her never to come back.
This is a concise look at what we have been assigned. Sorry, it is grim.
However, if it were in regular session we would have four months to try to
get it right and to get around delaying procedures.
We have maybe two weeks before we all quit and go home. It will not all be
as tedious as the above. I have hesitated, but will introduce the
guillotine, and possibly the firing squad, as better alternatives. Because
they are. What I especially like about them is they give the deterrent
promoters more punch. Put it on TV. I have found no evidence anywhere that
the death penalty is a deterrent. It does impress those of us who do not plan
to kill. Gang members welcome death over life in prison. Howsomever, if
some people like deterrence they will love my options.
No botched guillotine on record. Works. Low tech. Tested. Same with
firing squad, though it takes some supplies (bullets). (Lethal takes alot of
drugs, which we cannot buy without changing the law.)
I left out hanging, because it is high tech. The team should do a
correlation between body weight and length of the rope. A light body has to
drop far enough to pull the rope tight. But if heavy and the rope is too
long, it causes decapitation. The smoothness of the rope on the knot affects
the time of death, whether blood or breath is cut off first. In some cases
they had to shoot the hanging man so they could go home. You wanted to know
all that, right?
Time for a little fun. Senator Chambers has 19 bills in - more to come. One
declares that being Senator Chambers a class one felony. (Penalty is death.)
That is because, as he points out in length in the bill, he is so brilliant
and the governor is so annoyed. (The governor VERY foolishly said he wanted
a special session to control Chambers. O my. That is throwing red meat to a
hungry creature. Chambers loves it and is determined to prove that he cannot
be controlled. He controls. My money in this personal duel is on Chambers.
But why drag us into a personal feud?)
Chamber's strategy is to overload the system, which is easy to do in special
session, with only one general subject. It is very hard to do in general
session, where we sideline what we do not like and go on with something else.
For example, every bill must have a hearing. Therefore, file 20 bills, with
sometimes only two words difference between them. Plus, on the floor you can
eat up the clock by hopeless motions on pulling each of those bills which are
killed by committee. Plus, on the floor you can try to amend any bill with
one of the killed bills, with the straight-faced assertion that it had a
hearing.
Is the death penalty overwhelmingly supported by citizens of Nebraska? I
doubt it. It is selective. Prominent, rich people do not get Old Sparky and
Nebraskans prefer fair. It costs us a bundle -- much more than life in
prison. Years of private room, with double ratio of guards and appeal after
appeal in which we pay both sides of attorneys. (Next to come, the courts
will require us to provide a defense as expensive as what the rich can have.
Boston judge: top line penalty requires top line defense.)
It teaches violence. Makes us share in killing. We cannot be sure the
person is guilty. AND appeals on unequal treatment will increase. Though
people do not have many of the facts, I doubt the public is that supportive
of all this. Hope that some paper will do an unbiased poll.
That fairly well lays out our problem. My future comments will be much
shorter, as I have yet to hear a solution which will work.
Lowen
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