Abolishing death penalty

In a landmark veto-override vote backed by an unusual coalition of conservatives who oppose capital punishment, Nebraska abolished the death penalty.
Senators in the one-house Legislature voted to override Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican who supports the death penalty. The vote makes Nebraska the first traditionally conservative state to eliminate the punishment since North Dakota in 1973.

Some senators said they philosophically support the death penalty, but are convinced the state will never carry out another execution because of legal obstacles. Nebraska hasn't executed an inmate since a 1997 electrocution.

The repeal bill was introduced by independent Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has fought for nearly four decades to repeal the death penalty.
  
Nebraska now has 10 men on death row, after one died on Sunday of natural causes.
Michael Ryan on death row for the 1985 cult killings of two people, including a 5-year-old boy had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

At least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate punishment. [The Guardian, Ed Pilkington].

Just a thought.