The Daily - An Execution in Nebraska

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

After a 40-year crusade, a state lawmaker succeeded in getting Nebraska to ban the death penalty in 2015. Why, then, did the state execute a prisoner this month? Guests: Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, and Mitch Smith, a national reporter for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After a 40-year crusade, a lawmaker in Nebraska succeeded in outlawing the death penalty. So why did Nebraska just execute a prisoner. It's Wednesday, August 29th. Hello.

Hello. Hi, is this Senator Chambers? Who would it be other than Senator Chambers? Good question. Okay. This is Michael Barbaro from The New York Times. Glad to talk to you. Tell me a bit about your district and when you started representing it.

My district is primarily black. It's located in the heart of North Omaha. I ran for this office and achieved election around 1972. So I've been in office so far a total of 44 years. Wow. That's longer than I'd be sentenced for robbing a bank. And I think it's been harder here

than it might have been in prison. State Senator Ernie Chambers, he's an institution in Nebraska politics. He is the longest serving member of the Nebraska legislature and often one of one or two African Americans in that body. Mitch Smith is a national reporter

for The Times. He is known for being savvy, for being powerful, and for being outspoken, sometimes in ways that create controversy. He has this lyrical style of speaking. I live inside of my mind, inside of my psyche, inside of my world. And my mantra comes from the greatest philosopher slash thinker America ever produced. That's Popeye the Sailor Man.

That mantra, I am what I am, that's all that I am. He's called the governor evil. He's called Republicans Republicans. He has said something to the effect of the police are my ISIS. And those things have all not necessarily played well in a conservative state like Nebraska. Senator Chambers is known for wielding this outsized power despite frequently being an ideological minority. I own you. You are my legislature.

I feel like a duke or an earl or whoever is in charge of a fiefdom. This is a legislature dominated by conservatives, but his filibusters, his threats of filibusters, and just his knowledge of the rules and regulations of the Nebraska legislature make him a real force. What will you do if the bill goes back to the committee? You'll wind up making all this noise like the mountain, and then it will bring forth the miles

well nebraska is a very backward state very racist so i decided that the rich people don't need my help the strong powerful people don't need my help but the least the last the lost the friendless the voiceless those at the margins and outside are the ones who need a strong voice. I believe unshakably that there is an intrinsic dignity that every human being possesses, no matter how far he or she may have fallen. And when that dignity is attacked and there's something I can do to alleviate it, that's what I will do. I don't care who the person is. Senator, the reason we're talking to you today is because we're interested in a particular piece of legislation that you introduced early on in your career that feels very much in keeping with your belief about those who are marginalized, those who are disenfranchised.

Yes. And that's the death penalty. Yes. And that's the death penalty. Yes. Tell me about the first time you introduced legislation trying to end the death penalty in Nebraska. In 1973. So you had just been elected. Yep.

And what happened? It didn't go anywhere. I don't think it even got out of committee. It doesn't pass, but he keeps bringing it up. He keeps introducing it in 1979. In 1979, well, the moon was in its seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars, but there was no peace guiding the planet. No, there was a confluence of events and circumstances that allowed me to get 26 votes. I cannot tell you what made that session different from all the ones before.

It happened, and I was glad. Okay. A bill that would repeal the death penalty passes. Nebraska lawmakers passed that bill. But a Republican governor vetoed it. In the following session, I offered a repealer again. Well, Senator Chambers is undeterred. But the thing is, for the first many years of his activism on this, there had been no executions in Nebraska. But then come the 1990s, and that starts to

change. There's this movement toward actually carrying out the executions of people on death row. The first man scheduled to die is Harold Lamont Otey, a black man who had been convicted of killing a woman. And it's kind of an event. It's scheduled to happen at midnight. Nebraska plans to use the electric chair and people show up in pretty large numbers, some of them very happy that Nebraska

is going to carry out executions again. They had racist statements, racist signs. They shouted the N-word, showing the barbarism of white people in Nebraska. There's even the photo of this one sign someone had that night that says, Nebraska State Pen, First Annual Barbecue. Why is there a barbecue there? Well, it's a reference to the electric chair. Oh, wow.

It takes two switches to activate the chair. One just five feet in front of the prisoner and the other behind a door about five feet behind the chair. Death in the chair is not instantaneous nor pleasant and sterile. It usually takes a couple of minutes before the 2,500 volts do the job

and leaves a frightening impression on anyone who's witnessed an execution. So Mr. Odie is executed in September 1994. It's Nebraska's first execution in 35 years. But Senator Chambers keeps fighting, and just a couple years later, there's another execution scheduled, this time a man named John Joubert. That night, Senator Chambers actually goes to the prison in his final hours before Mr. Joubert goes to the electric chair. And I talked to him. He was very young. He was about five feet, maybe not much taller than that. But at that time, he had grown a beard. He had been in prison for some time. The deputy warden was the one cutting off his hair, and they had to shave his head so that the electricity would make a good contact.

The deputy warden was nervous because he knows I'm a barber. They had this metal container with warm water, and he had a safety razor. I said, look, here's what you do. You take this towel and you put it in the water and you wring it out almost dry and you place it on his head and hold it there and it will soften the hair. I showed him which blade of the clippers to use to cut the hair as close to the scalp as possible. I said, man, I'll do it myself. He said, no, we can't have a civilian or anybody involved. I said, then I'll tell you what to do. Now, after you have softened his hair, you take this, they had the foam in the container, you spread it on his scalp, and then you massage it in. You take the rag, wipe that off, put the towel on warm again, then you put the spray on, then you carefully

move the blade, always holding it flush. Wait, I just want to be clear that you, so you helped this deputy warden prepare this man for death, which I imagine felt very complicated for you. Because I was thinking about what the man himself was going through. They were going to cut his hair. They were going to shave him. They didn't know what they were doing. And I was thinking about what the man himself was going through. They were going to cut his hair. They were going to shave him. They didn't know what they were doing. And I was not going to let him go there looking like his hair had been pulled out by a pair of pliers. They wouldn't have his head shaved in the way it had to be to do the horrible thing they were going to do.

Well, in the years that follow, Senator Chambers keeps trying to outlaw the death penalty, keeps introducing these bills, and they keep failing over and over. But some things are changing. The Nebraska Supreme Court outlaws the electric chair. And then in other states, there are people on death row who are exonerated, raising questions about whether innocent people are being killed. row who are exonerated, raising questions about whether innocent people are being killed. Amid this national debate, Nebraska's executions stopped for many years.

And then, in 2015, Senator Chambers introduces yet another bill to outlaw the death penalty. But this time, it gets traction. When you say that he's getting traction, what exactly do you mean? Who's joining him this time? Well, it's a mix of lawmakers. It's liberals who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds. At the end of day, as I've told people, you can't nuance this decision. It's people who oppose the death penalty on religious grounds. Nebraskans believe that all life is given to them by their creator, and that he will call us home. And I think this is a pretty good plan.

It's also small government conservatives, some of them, who question the cost and the implementation of this policy. Over the last decade, the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty. So it sounds like all these politically diverse figures in the legislature are behind this effort in 2015 to ban the death penalty. So at this point, who is opposed to it? Well, certainly some conservatives in the legislature, certainly many Nebraskans. But most significantly, it's the new governor, Pete Ricketts, a Republican, a Roman Catholic who took office in early 2015.

But the fact of the matter is, we live in a dangerous society. We have dangerous criminals. And we need to have the appropriate tools for law enforcement to be able to protect us. And that's why so many Nebraskans I talk with are in favor of the death penalty. Not long after Governor Ricketts takes office, Senator Chambers has again put forward a bill. And this time it's making its way through the system and gaining supporters. And it comes up for a final vote and it passes 32 to 15. But that's not the end of it. Governor Ricketts is a veto and everyone knows he's going to use it.

And he does. So that sets up a very tense veto override vote. No one's quite sure how it's going to go. There were senators who were leaving the floor not to go talk to the people outside, but I guess to commune with whatever they needed to commune with to stay strong. So there was a whole lot of activity. It was feverish, if you want to describe it with one word. Then when the vote came, it was by a roll call. When we had 29 votes, the last senator voted yes to override. Yes to override. Please, let's have...

We had exactly 30 votes to override. A historic vote ends with emotion overflowing from onlookers at the Nebraska State Capitol. There was a song that might describe it. It's got the whole world shaking. Something must be going on. Live at six. The death penalty is abolished in Nebraska. Today, state senators voted 30-19 to override the governor's veto. Now, a big death penalty surprise.

In the wake of so much news about crime and punishment in America, the Nebraska legislature has just voted to ban capital punishment, the first solidly red state to do so in four decades. The death penalty is now illegal in Nebraska. And this was a pivotal day in the history of the state, and it was seen for a moment as a pivotal day in the history of the country. But this wasn't over. Nebraska law allows a referendum.

If you get enough signatures, you can take something passed by the legislature and put it to a statewide vote. And almost immediately, supporters of the death penalty in Nebraska rallied. They are well organized, and they begin that petition drive. We live in a dangerous world. Detention and murder of a 12-year-old girl. Marco Torres, double murder in Grand Island. This fall, you can vote to keep the death penalty by voting to repeal that law. Vote repeal to keep the death penalty. So that petition campaign was funded by the governor. By the governor of the state who vetoed it.

Yes, he and his daddy. And there were other conservative groups, but they put the lion's share of the money in. No governor had ever done anything like that, not just from the standpoint of the money, but taking that kind of a role. And where did he, where did the governor, the legislature did? And where did the governor get this money from? His daddy. He didn't create any money. His father's rich. He owns TD Ameritrade. Ah, this is the TD Ameritrade family. The Ricketts has owned the Chicago Cubs. And the governor and his family bankroll largely

the effort to put the death penalty question to voters. Nebraska's governor makes another major donation hoping to bring back the death penalty. Our partner, the Omaha World-Herald reports that Governor Pete Ricketts donated another $100,000 to the cause. That's in addition to the $200,000 he gave during the petition drive. Some people may question just the amount of the money given, you know, maybe $500. Does it matter how much that you give, $500,000 or $100,000? Well, we have outside interests like George Soros, who've dumped $400,000 into this. I think that having people from Nebraska support it actually says which side Nebraskans support.

And they're able to get a lot of Nebraskans to sign on. And after a few months of gathering petitions and issues, it's clear that this is going to be decided at the ballot box. Coverage of Election Night 2016 continues. The ballots are being counted tonight in Nebraska. A big issue on the Nebraska ballot is the death penalty. Our partner, the Omaha World-H the Nebraska ballot is the death penalty. Our partner, the Omaha World-Herald, just called the death penalty referendum. They've declared the repeal side the winner. That means the death penalty will return in Nebraska. Back again. Death penalty opponents

led by Senator Ernie Chambers say they are undaunted, even after 61 percent of Nebraska voters chose to reinstate capital punishment last November. So Nebraskans did what Nebraskans do. They are in favor of that which is barbaric, uncivilized, and vindictive, and they will remain that way. I've been dealing in their government for 42 years. I know them. So I want to understand something, because this referendum represents

the majority of Nebraskans saying that they want the death penalty to be legal. And obviously you don't share that belief. But at the same time, you're a member of the legislature and you exist to represent the people. So hasn't the will of the state prevailed? Let me make it clear what I mean by representation. I told people who voted for me, I'm not down there to reflect ignorance or to echo stupidity. It's stupidity. Stupidity is not anything that ought to inform the policies of a state. You're trying to get me to say that whatever a majority of the people say is the way it ought to be done because the majority taking that position makes it right. because the majority taking that position makes it right. Right is not determined by a vote or by how many people say a certain thing.

Wrong is not determined in that way either. So what you're saying is that this should never have been put to the voters in a referendum like this, that legislators should be the ones to decide a question of this magnitude. to decide a question of this magnitude. Justice Brennan made what I consider one of the most succinct, perceptive comments about these kind of issues. And he said, the right to be free

of cruel and unusual punishments, like the other guarantees of the Bill of Rights, may not be submitted to vote. The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. In other words, these rights should be beyond a popularity contest or popularity poll.

If you put a provision on the ballot to let people vote for there to be taxes. There wouldn't be taxes. Exactly. These people know what it means to have certain things beyond the realm of this popular nonsense. The death penalty should be one of those. Why? Why should capital punishment be different? Because death is different from any other punishment,

and taking or extinguishing a human life is the most solemn, awesome thing that a state can do. And the purpose of the state should be to preserve the lives of all of its citizens, to put in place those principles and policies that preserve life rather than destroy it. So that was in 2016. The real significance of what the governor was able to do in the referendum came to pass just a couple weeks ago. A man named Kerry Dean Moore was scheduled to die. This was the first scheduled execution in 21 years in Nebraska. This is a very somber and sober responsibility of the state and I would ask all Nebraskans

to treat this that way. Governor Pete Ricketts says he takes no glee in the state carrying out an execution. He will be conducting business as normal Tuesday morning. So it's Tuesday morning. I'm in the Nebraska State Penitentiary, about 45 minutes away from when the execution is scheduled to begin. In another wing of the prison, Kerry Dean Moore is brought into a room. The warden's there. Some guards are there. A few reporters the state chose to witness the process are there, too.

They've got a recorder running. You may make a final statement at this time. Just the statement that I had delivered to you already about the innocent men on Nebraska's death row. That's all that I have to say. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Thank you. How did it feel for you to come so close

to having ended executions in Nebraska, only to have it overturned by this referendum backed by the governor, and then have a man executed. You must understand that everything I think, everything I do, is from the perspective of a black man who has spent 81 years in this racist society. That means many things that I've undertaken have been frustrated. No matter how righteous they are, no matter how just, they don't result in the end product that they should. So this is just another of those. What happens with your bill now, this one that you've introduced dozens of times over so many years? What happens to it now? You have to introduce it every session. I will introduce it in January. That's when we go back into session. But if they kill it,

then next year I will offer it again. if after four years and i'll be 85 years old my health is good my mind is clear and the people think that i should be down there again maybe i'll be back again who knows now if lazarus can come back alive after having been dead three days maybe i can make a comeback after four years, though I have never died. I really want to thank you. It's mutual. I thank you, too. Okay. Good luck, sir. So long.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Yeah, I think Google is really taking advantage of a lot of people, and I think that's a very serious thing, and it's a very serious charge. On Tuesday, President Trump attacked Google for what he said was an organized effort to suppress search results that are supportive of his administration, a claim Google denied. After apparently Googling the words Trump News, the president was displeased with the results. They have it rigged for me and others, he tweeted, so that almost all stories and news is bad. A few hours later, Trump's chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, said he would look into the possibility of regulating Google more heavily. Could you explain a little bit what you're looking into, what you'd like to see happen there?

No. We're just looking into it. Okay, just looking into it. Just leave it at that. Any evidence that they actually are censoring any research results? We're looking into it. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.