Why have I so relentlessly fought against the death penalty for more than two score years?
Were I the "black racist," as so many white Nebraskans aver -- why, rather than labor to save his life, would I not exult at the prospect of a white man being offered up by white people as a living sacrifice on the blood-drenched altar of capital punishment in a macabre experimental lethal injection?
If, as happens with experiments, things go horribly wrong, who will be held liable and accountable? Will it be the attorney general, who managed to draw the Nebraska Supreme Court into the vortex of a violently swirling political maelstrom, the Supreme Court -- which ordered an experimental lethal injection comprising a four-drug combination never before used and whose manufacturers strenuously object to their medicines being misused to kill -- or Corrections Director Scott Frakes, the designated executioner who has given assurances all will go well?
In the event of a botched execution, will the culpable minions of death attempt (as futilely as Lady Macbeth) to wash their hands of the guilty stain in the infamous manner of Pilate?
For me, this situation boils down to a matter of personal conviction based on unshakable belief in the intrinsic human dignity of every person, regardless of how far he or she may have fallen, which embraces a condemned prisoner like Carey Dean Moore -- so dispirited and dehumanized after decades of incarceration that he no longer believes in his own human dignity and worth as a human being -- who will submit meekly to being complicit in the state's macabre ritual of death.
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The matter is summed up masterfully in John Dunne's famous transcendental homily that begins "No man is an island" and concludes "any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Such principles being ingrained in my psyche, I am imprisoned in an escape-proof moral and ethical obligation to lend a hand to "the least, the last, the lost" even though they may not ask for it.
In conclusion, the Nebraska Supreme Court itself proclaimed in a 2007 opinion withdrawing a "prematurely" issued death warrant for Moore: "It is a natural reaction for some to wish to be rid of an admitted murderer who asks to be executed. We are nonetheless required to ensure the integrity of death sentences in Nebraska. ... We must adhere to our heightened obligation to ensure the lawful and constitutional administration of the death penalty[.]"
Execution of a never-before-used, experimental lethal injection without factual or evidentiary bases on which to rest an assurance that a botched execution will not occur violates the court's self-imposed standard.
Death row inmates
Nebraska's 11 death row inmates
Jose Sandoval
Nikko Jenkins
John Lotter
Raymond Mata
Jorge Galindo
Erick Vela
Jeffrey Hessler
Roy Ellis
Marco Torres
Anthony Garcia
Aubrey Trail
Sen. Ernie Chambers represents District 11, which includes portions of North Omaha, in the Nebraska Legislature.
Correction
Because of an editing error, the original version of this column incorrectly quoted the Nebraska Supreme Court's opinion.