{"id":2828,"date":"2011-01-21T21:27:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T21:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2013-03-12T09:06:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T15:06:19","slug":"bill-would-clarify-life-without-parole-provisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=2828","title":{"rendered":"Bill would clarify life without parole provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard joint testimony Jan. 21 on two measures meant to clarify provisions of Nebraska law regarding the penalty for a Class I felony.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, penalties for a Class I felony include death and life imprisonment without parole.<\/p>\n<p>In 2002, the Legislature held a special session to address Nebraska\u2019s capital punishment sentencing laws following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in <em>Ring v. Arizona<\/em>. In that case, the court held that a defendant has the right to have a jury, rather than a judge, decide on the existence of an aggravating factor that makes the defendant eligible for the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>During the special session, language was adopted to clarify that the penalty for Class I felonies, when the death penalty is not utilized, is life imprisonment \u201cwithout parole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, in 2005, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in <em>State v. Conover<\/em>, that two of those changes were outside the scope of the governor\u2019s call, which determines the parameters of what lawmakers may consider during a special session. As a result, the addition of the words \u201cwithout parole\u201d was ruled unconstitutional in those two sections.<\/p>\n<p>LB12, introduced by Lexington Sen. John Wightman, would strike the phrase \u201cwithout parole\u201d in the sections of law where it was added during the 2002 special session.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nebraskalegislature.gov\/bills\/view_bill.php?DocumentID=11905\" target=\"_blank\">LB13<\/a>, also introduced by Wightman, would reinsert the provision of life without parole. Doing so during a regular legislative session, when there are no restrictions on a bill\u2019s subject matter, would negate the court\u2019s objection in the Conover case, Wightman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it is time to fix Nebraska\u2019s sentencing law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The committee took no immediate action on the bills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard joint testimony Jan. 21 on two measures meant to clarify provisions of Nebraska law regarding the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[114],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-john-wightman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","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=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10615,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/10615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}