Repealing the Death Penalty in Nebraska

A bill sponsored by former Omaha mayoral candidate and current State Senator Brenda Council made it out of committee the other day. LB 276 would repeal Nebraska’s death penalty, which would be replaced with a life sentence without the possibility of parole. This is a bill I want to throw my full support behind, which will consist of this blog post and probably another post when this bill comes up for vote in the legislature some time next year (truly my influence knows no bounds). I’m not going to cover every argument for and against the death penalty, but as this is a blog about Omaha I thought I would remind everyone of a case involving a local man that demonstrates one of the major problems with the death penalty. That man is the ignominious David Kofoed.

For those who don’t know the story of David Kofoed let me fill you in. Kofoed is a former Douglas County Crime Lab Manager. He was convicted for evidence tampering in a case that nearly sent two men, Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson, to prison for a double homicide. Kofoed took it upon himself to plant blood evidence in a car linked to one of the suspects. With that evidence along with a false confession by Livers (something that happens more than we would like to believe), the two suspects according to Special Prosecutor Mock of the case against Kofoed, “may very well be on death row right now.” Let’s focus on that for a second. Without the subsequent finding of exculpatory evidence, these two perfectly innocent men could be on death row right now, and death penalty advocates would not object to them paying the ultimate price for a crime they in fact did not commit. That happened right here in Nebraska. It would be naïve to think this is the one and only time something like this has ever happened. Law enforcement officers are under pressure to produce results in their investigations and under that pressure they are capable of making mistakes and unfortunately some investigators even decide to cross ethical boundaries in pursuit of those results.

Our criminal justice system is not perfect and in fact it is not expected to be. In criminal cases guilt only has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is understood and accepted that rarely can a case against a defendant be made with absolute certainty. The difference between life without parole and the death penalty is that if exculpatory evidence is discovered, then that mistaken conviction can be rectified in the case where a defendant was sent to life without parole, not so if that person was put to death. In the unfortunate event that exculpatory evidence never comes to light, at least that innocent suspect will have been able to live out the remainder of his or her life, even if not in ideal conditions, and at least innocent blood won’t be on our hands.