Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell got three hours of debate Wednesday to show whether a shield law is justified to protect the confidentiality of lethal injection drug manufacturers, including compounding companies, for use in Nebraska's death penalty.Ìý
The Legislature adjourned then without taking a vote.
But Kuehn said he believes he can bring the bill back again this session. He'd have to prove to Speaker Jim Scheer he has 33 votes to break a filibuster to do it.Ìý
Kuehn introduced the bill to allow the state to keep the names under wraps of manufacturers that provide lethal injection drugs to the state. He did so, he said, to protect producers from political activism and harassment that could continue to limit the general distribution of drugs that are also important to medical care of patients.Ìý
"I cannot overstate the absurdity or the magnitude of the social injustice created by an anesthetic shortage manufactured by those who wish to protect convicted death row inmates in exchange for vulnerable lives around the world that are in need of safe, effective and approved medical care," Kuehn said. Â
People are also reading…
Because of shortages, some states have turned to small compounders to formulate individual drug doses on an as-needed basis, he said.
"In several cases those compounding pharmacies have ceased production due to harassment when their identities were disclosed," he said.Ìý
He remained steadfast in his advocacy of transparency of government, especially regarding the votes and actions of public officials. Private citizens, however, have a right to protection, he said.Ìý
Kuehn argued that the limits put on the drugs' importation by the federal government are not because they are unsafe.Ìý
Companies that have refused to have their drugs used in carrying out death penalties have allowed use of their drugs to stop pregnancies or for euthanasia, he said. They just don't want the publicity associated with the death penalty, he said.Ìý
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, said this bill is more an issue of transparency and openness in government and whether the public has a right to know how taxpayer money is spent and to whom it is given.
Gov. Pete Ricketts, Attorney General Doug Peterson and the Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes collaborated, he said, to give $54,000 to "a known, rogue drug dealer in India who had stiffed Nebraska on previous occasions with reference to trying to procure these drugs."
The death penalty has shown itself to be a corrupting, demoralizing activity, Chambers said, and to get the means to carry it out, public and elected officials are reduced to telling senators to abrogate the principle of the open records law.Ìý
Last fall, voters overwhelmingly said the state should keep the death penalty as an option in Nebraska, Kuehn said. And opponents have said it is broken and can't be fixed.Ìý
Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus said the people who passed the initiative petition on the death penalty were not saying they wanted to make changes.Ìý
"What the people did was restore the status quo," he said. "The status quo had the best of both worlds."
It kept the death penalty as a deterrent. It continued to give prosecutors plea bargaining leverage, and a promise the accused would not be released as long as they were on death row.
"And the status quo had the likelihood of the death penalty being imposed at virtually zero," he said.Ìý
Nevertheless, last summer, Kuehn said, he began considering whether the death penalty was broken beyond repair or if there were specific steps that could be taken to make it workable. To that end, he introduced LB661 to help fix its functional problems. Nine other senators have signed on to the bill as co-sponsors.Ìý
Yes, the people spoke, said Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks.Ìý
"But I never saw a word on that form that anybody was voting to keep it all secret, or keep any part of it secret, so that the state can just move forward and do it at will, when and if and however it wants to," Pansing Brooks said. "'Cause those are the next steps, my friends."
If this bill was in force in 2015, the public would not have known that drug supplier Chris Harris of Harris Pharma had stolen $54,000 from the state, she said.Ìý
"Secrecy assures that scam artists continue," she said.Ìý