Defying their Republican governor's veto, members of Nebraska's legislature repealed the state's death penalty law and abolished capital punishment.
A Reuters report said Nebraska's unicameral legislature on Tuesday replaced the death penalty with a term of life without parole through 30 affirmative votes from lawmakers from different parties — the exact number of votes needed to override Governor Pete Ricketts' veto of the bill repealing capital punishment.
Governor Ricketts is a staunch supporter of the death penalty and has lobbied vigorously to retain it in his state as a deterrent to crime. Nineteen members of the Nebraska legislature supported Ricketts' view, voting against the bill repealing capital punishment.
A separate report from The New York Times said the dozens of spectators in the Nebraska legislature's gallery burst into celebration after lawmakers approved the bill repealing death penalty.
Senators who supported the repeal of capital punishment in Nebraska cited religious considerations, the state's imperfect justice system which may result in wrongful convictions, and difficulty in obtaining drugs used for lethal injections as reasons for defying Rickett's veto.
"Everything we've seen and heard from studies in the past shows that at best the death penalty is applied arbitrarily," Nebraska Senator Matt Hansen said in the Reuters report.
Because of its legislature's decision, Nebraska became the 19th state in the United States to repeal capital punishment. It is also the first majority Republican State to abolish death penalty in over four decades, North Dakota being the last to do so in 1973.
Data from the Nebraska Death Penalty Information Center showed that the state has not executed an inmate on death row since 1997. The state's government nevertheless recently bought drugs for lethal injection at the height of debates in the legislature on repealing capital punishment.
