Nebraska moving to conduct its first execution since 1997

The US state of Nebraska is moving to conduct its first execution since 1997. An execution date of 14 June has been set for Carey Dean Moore, who has been on death row for three decades.

Carey Dean Moore was re-sentenced to death in 1995 after his original 1980 sentence was overturned on appeal. He was one of more than 300 people sentenced to death in 1995. Indeed, in 1994, 1995 and 1996, over 300 people were sentenced to death each year in the USA, the most recorded in any years since executions resumed in 1977. In the past decade one of the signs that the USA is beginning to turn against the death penalty is that the number of death sentences passed each year has substantially declined. Since 2006 just over 100 people have been sentenced to death each year. The annual number of executions peaked at 98 in 1999, and has since fallen to around half that number each year. The last execution in Nebraska was in December 1997.

In the past four years, three states – New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois – have legislated to abolish the death penalty. Signing these bills into law, the three state governors pointed to the death penalty’s flaws, such as the risk of irrevocable error and unfairness, its discriminatory application, its costs and diversion of resources from crime prevention and victim assistance, the lack of any proven special deterrent effect, and its potentially brutalizing effect on society. In 2008, the then most senior member of the US Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens, revealed that his 33 years on the Court had persuaded him that the “imposition of the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life”. In the 14 years since Nebraska last carried out an execution, some three dozen more countries have abolished the death penalty, and today 139 countries are abolitionist in law or practice. The UN General Assembly has called on all retentionist countries to impose a moratorium on executions. During scrutiny of the USA’s human rights record under the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Process in late 2010, numerous countries called on the USA to end its use of the death penalty.

Carey Dean Moore, who was 21 years old at the time of the crime and is now 53, is not currently seeking executive clemency. While there is therefore no clemency petition before these authorities, Amnesty International nevertheless is urging them to act to prevent Nebraska from taking the backward step of carrying out its first execution in 14 years. Carey Dean Moore is allowing his lawyers to seek a stay of execution in the courts in the context of issues relating to lethal injection, including the state’s recent purchase of drugs from a company in India.

Additional Information

Recommended action

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English or your own language, in your own words:

Expressing concern that the State of Nebraska is looking to conduct its first execution in 14 years;

Welcoming the growing recognition in the USA of the inherent flaws of the death penalty;

Welcoming the recent abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey;

Noting the growing isolation of the USA on the death penalty, and the international calls for a worldwide moratorium on executions;

Urging the authorities to do all they can to prevent any executions in Nebraska, including of Carey Dean Moore.

Please note that as Carey Dean Moore is not currently seeking executive clemency, we are not calling for commutation of his death sentence, as there is no clemency petition before the state executive authorities. However, given our abolitionist policy and the backward step that we consider an execution in Nebraska would constitute, we should still urge these authorities to do all they can to prevent any executions in Nebraska, including that of Carey Dean Moore.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AND BEFORE 14 JUNE 2011.

Appeals to

Secretary of State John A. Gale,

PO Box 94608,

Lincoln,

NE 68509-4608,

USA.

Fax: +1 402 471-3237 // 471-3237

Email: sos.info@nebraska.gov // sos.intlrel@nebraska.gov

Salutation: Dear Secretary of State

Attorney General Jon Bruning,

Office of the Attorney General,

2115 State Capitol,

Lincoln,

NE 68509,

USA.

Fax: +1 402 471-3297

Salutation: Dear Attorney General

Copies to

Governor Dave Heineman,

Office of the Governor,

PO Box 94848,

Lincoln,

NE 68509-4848,

USA.

Fax: +1 402-471-6031

Salutation: Dear Governor

Ambassade des Etats-Unis d'Amérique,

Sulgeneckstrasse 19,

Case postale,

3007 Berne.

Fax : 031 357 73 44 // 031 357 73 98

Internet: http://bern.usembassy.gov/

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