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Now is the Time to Abolish the Death Penalty

We have a golden opportunity to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska during this legislative session. Last week the Judiciary Committee forwarded LB 1063 to the full legislature for debate. LB proposes to abolish the death penalty and establishes the penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The following day the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that Nebraska's only method of enforcing the death penalty, the electric chair, violates the State Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

It is unlikely that legislation could be developed at this point that would effectively create a Constitutionally acceptable method of execution.

There is likely to be a lot of activity and debate in the legislature this week. Please contact your state senator and encourage him or her to support LB 1063. Tell me more

Talking Points

A majority of Nebraskans polled in 2006 supported abolishing the death penalty if it is replaced by life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Life in prison without the possibility of parole adequately protects society and is less expensive to enforce than is the death penalty.

Many people who have been sentenced to death were later exonerated by DNA evidence.

The recent Nebraska Supreme Court ruling leaves the state's ability to carry out death sentences in doubt.

The ELCA's Social Statement on the Death Penalty offers sound theological, ethical and moral reasons to oppose the death penalty. The Social Statement reminds us that, as a community of faith, our primary concern when violence rocks a community is to work at reconciling the community as much as possible. The death penalty does nothing to work toward reconciliation.

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