OMAHA, Neb. (FOX42KPTM) — A woman accused of murder may be the first woman on death row in the state.
Bailey Boswell will go on trial in six months, but those against the death penalty say there are better options.
Currently, there are 12 men on death row in Nebraska.
In March 2020, Bailey Boswell, one of the people accused of killing and dismembering Lincoln woman, Sydney Loofe, could be the first woman to get the death penalty.
The death penalty hasn't always been an option; the state has gone back and forth on the death penalty.
In 2015, lawmakers got rid of it and a year later it was voted back in.
The last execution in Nebraska was in 2018 and Carey Dean Moore was put to death.
Moore's death was the first in the state to use lethal injection and reignited the conversation over the death penalty.
Matt Maly with Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty says this method needs to be reevaluated.
“Even if we wanted to continue doing secret executions and to continue to not have transparency in such a gray and important process," says Maly. "We still don’t even have the drugs to do it that way.”
Nebraska’s supply of lethal drugs expired in 2018 but Maly says his group still wants it off the books entirely.
“We’re not going to give up on this issue. Nebraskans have been fighting to get rid of the death penalty for decades, and we’ll continue to do public education and be all over this state, teaching people the facts about the death penalty.”
Governor Pete Ricketts has fought to keep the death penalty for years.
In a statement on his website, “I will veto any attempt to repeal the death penalty here in our state. This proposal is the wrong direction and would soften our state’s approach to dealing with criminals.”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Death-row prisoners in the U.S. typically spend more than a decade awaiting execution.
“From a victim’s perspective, there’s over 30 families who have been through horrible, horrible things and have things done to their loved ones," says Maly. "They have been told this crime was so terrible that we’re going to seek the ultimate punishment. This person is going to be executed for what they’ve done to you and almost all of those families, it never happened.”
As far as Boswell potentially being the first woman on death row, Maly says it shouldn’t be an option.
“We have the full ability to lock them up for a life sentence, they’ll never ever come before a parole board, there is zero chance of them ever getting out and walking the streets again. Again, we can save a lot of money that way and just lock them up and forget about them.”
According to a Creighton University study, the state spends around $14.6 million a year to keep its capital punishment system.
An average of $23.2 million more a year than other states without it
The costs come from appeals, pre-trials and attorneys.
Source: fox42kptm.com, Jenna Liston, October 2, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
