Execution date sought for Nebraska's longest-serving death row inmate

LINCOLN — Nebraska took another step toward bringing back the death penalty Tuesday by seeking an execution date for condemned killer Carey Dean Moore.

Attorney General Doug Peterson filed a motion with the Nebraska Supreme Court seeking a death warrant for Moore, 60, the longest-serving inmate on death row. The legal filing says a date of execution must be set no later than 60 days after the court issues a death warrant.

The motion also states that Moore has no pending appeals or stays of execution in state or federal courts. In recent months, Moore has declined to be named in a new round of legal challenges filed by death penalty opponents.

“The State of Nebraska has a constitutionally acceptable method of carrying out Moore’s death sentences by lethal injection,” said the motion, which was co-filed by State Solicitor General James Smith.

Last year, Nebraska prison officials obtained four drugs that they intend to use for the execution. The drug combination has never been used in an execution, and state officials have refused to identify their supplier.

A leading death penalty opponent on Tuesday condemned the “rush toward an execution,” given that there are several pending legal and administrative challenges of an execution protocol that the state amended last year.

Danielle Conrad, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, said Moore’s decision to “stop fighting at this juncture” heightens the need to allow the death penalty challenges to play out. Among other things, the ACLU has alleged that Nebraska officials misled federal authorities in obtaining the lethal injection drugs.

“Holding a lawless execution would greatly diminish our state,” she said.

Moore shot and killed Omaha cab drivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland in the summer of 1979. Over the years, he has said he took the lives of the men to steal money for drugs and because he wanted to prove that he could kill.

Helgeland and Van Ness were both 47-year-old fathers and military veterans.

If the execution takes place, it will mark the first time Nebraska has used lethal injection to put an inmate to death. The state’s method was the electric chair in 1997, when the last execution took place.

Moore has evaded execution multiple times during his 38 years on death row. The Supreme Court last set an execution date for him in 2011, but withdrew the death warrant after Moore’s attorney challenged how Nebraska authorities had obtained the drugs it intended to use.

It’s unclear whether he currently has legal representation.

Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who has represented Moore in the past, said his former client has a request for a commutation hearing pending before the Nebraska Board of Pardons. Such a hearing would give Moore the opportunity to ask for his death sentence to be reduced, most likely to a life term.

The Pardons Board, made up of the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state, does not have to grant a hearing. Peterson and Gov. Pete Ricketts are strong supporters of the death penalty.

Nebraska prison officials notified Moore in January that the Corrections Department had obtained supplies of four lethal injection drugs it intends to use to execute him.

The ACLU last week filed a lawsuit challenging the execution protocol that would be used. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha also has filed an administrative complaint in the Legislature that challenges how the Ricketts administration established the new protocol.

In addition, the ACLU has alleged that Nebraska officials misled federal authorities in obtaining the lethal substances last year. The organization has asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to launch an investigation into possible violations by prison officials.

A DEA spokesman recently confirmed that the agency had received the ACLU’s allegations, but he declined to say whether an investigation was underway.

Nebraska officials revealed they had obtained the drugs in November when they gave formal notice to death-row inmate Jose Sandoval. But since then, Sandoval has filed a post-conviction motion challenging his death sentence, and the attorney general has not yet sought a death warrant.

In 2015, the Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, overriding the governor’s veto to do so.

Ricketts then helped lead and fund a petition drive that put the issue on the ballot in 2016, when 61 percent of voters decided to restore capital punishment.

Source: Omaha World-Herald, Joe Duggan, April 3, 2018

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Florida executes Daniel Owen Conahan Jr.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’ A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Florida to execute William Thompson after nearly 48 years on death row

On Sept. 11, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a death warrant for William Thompson, convicted of the 1976 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 23-year-old Sally Ivester. Thompson, now 74, and another man were staying in a Miami Beach hotel room with Ivester and another woman, according to court records. After Ivester was unable to get money from her mother, the men beat and tortured her, prosecutors said. She died from internal bleeding and multiple injuries. Thompson was convicted in 1978 of kidnapping, rape, and first-degree murder.

Singapore | Ministry of Home Affairs refutes claims that death penalty was discussed during visit by Israel's security ministry

The Ministry of Home Affairs says discussions with the Israeli government involved the sharing of best practices in emergency response, crime prevention, and forensics. Issues relating to the death penalty “were never part of the meeting and were not discussed." SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday (Sep 11) refuted claims by an Israeli media outlet that the death penalty was discussed during a visit by an Israeli delegation in May. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Sep 7 that a delegation comprising representatives from the Israel Prison Service and National Security Ministry made a “secret visit” to Singapore that month.

Afghanistan | Signs that horrific brutality is set to return

Kneeling next to a ditch, deep in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old woman draws her last breath in a 'desert court' before she is shot in the back with an AK-47. Her executioner? Likely her hardline militant husband, in what the Taliban consider an 'honour killing'. It took less than an hour to decide Najiba had been adulterous – although it has been suggested this accusation was fabricated to protect her husband's reputation. Adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law. Fourteen years on from her death, little is known about her story, like many women slowly being erased from the fabric of Afghan society.

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Alabama | Lethal injection for double murderer set for Thursday after court blocked nitrogen hypoxia execution in June

Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday via lethal injection after a down-to-the-wire decision by the federal courts halted his death by nitrogen hypoxia in June. In response, Gov. Kay Ivey set the 30-hour window for the execution to be carried out by lethal injection beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, and expiring at 6 a.m. on Friday, September 18. Barring any further court action, the execution will take place at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog