{"id":25945,"date":"2019-04-17T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T17:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25945"},"modified":"2019-04-17T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T17:24:07","slug":"increased-judicial-tampering-penalties-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25945","title":{"rendered":"Increased judicial tampering penalties advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 16 to a bill that would increase penalties for witness and jury tampering.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB496, sponsored by Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, would make witness, informant or jury tampering a Class II felony when the underlying criminal charge is a Class II felony or higher. A Class II felony carries a penalty of one to 50 years in prison.<\/p>\n

People can tamper with witnesses now and receive only two years of probation, Wayne said. If witnesses then refuse to testify, criminals could go free, he said, which incentivizes tampering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to send a message that we no longer are going to tolerate outside influence from criminals and those facing criminal sanctions in our communities,\u201d Wayne said.<\/p>\n

A Judiciary Committee amendment, adopted 39-0, would reduce the tampering penalty to a Class I misdemeanor when the underlying criminal proceeding alleges a Class II misdemeanor or lower. A Class I misdemeanor carries a penalty of up to one year in prison, a $1,000 fine or both.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop said the amended bill is a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to preserve the sanctity of jury trials and the criminal justice system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Senators advanced the bill to select file on a 38-0 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 16 to a bill that would increase penalties for witness and jury tampering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-25945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/LB496Wayne4-16-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25946,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions\/25946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}