A bill that would allow juveniles serving life imprisonment sentences to petition for a sentence commutation failed to advance from general file April 7.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Brenda Council introduced LB251, which originally would have increased court filing fees and costs. A Judiciary Committee amendment replaced the original bill on a 37-0 vote and would allow a person under 18 years of age who is sentenced to life imprisonment to petition the state Board of Pardons for a sentence commutation after serving at least 20 years.<\/p>\n
Council said the area of the brain that plays a critical role in decision-making has not finished developing in juveniles, so their reasoning skills and impulse control are not as sharp as adults\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs science develops and we understand the differences of the juvenile mind, we see what juveniles are capable of doing without thinking,\u201d Council said. \u201cThis bill is not a radical bill, it is a measured, balanced approach that recognizes the differences that exist between juveniles and adults.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the amended bill, persons who entered custody prior to July 1, 1994, could submit a petition beginning in 2012. The board could consider a person who:
\n\u2022 was convicted of first-degree murder or of aiding and abetting another person in committing such act;
\n\u2022 does not have juvenile felony adjudications for assault or other felony crimes with a significant potential for personal harm to victims prior to the offense;
\n\u2022 committed the offense with at least one adult co-person;
\n\u2022 prior to the offense, had insufficient adult support or supervision and had suffered from psychological or physical trauma or significant stress;
\n\u2022 suffers from cognitive limitations due to mental illness, developmental disabilities or other factors that did not constitute a defense, but influenced his or her involvement in the offense;
\n\u2022 performed acts that tend to indicate rehabilitation or the potential for rehabilitation;
\n\u2022 has maintained family ties or connections through writing letters, phone calls or visits or has eliminated contact with individuals outside of prison who are involved with crime; and
\n\u2022 had no disciplinary actions for violent activities in the last five years in which he or she was determined to be the aggressor.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford, Judiciary Committee chairperson, spoke in support of the amendment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll this does is give a little more consideration to a person who has been sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile,\u201d Ashford said.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Gwen Howard opposed the bill, saying \u201credemption is in the eye of the beholder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone that commits cold blooded murder, no matter how old they are, should be facing the consequences,\u201d Howard said. \u201cWhen a family can petition us to get [the victim] back, that is when I will support this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norfolk Sen. Mike Flood also opposed the bill, saying he questioned whether it would be constitutional to provide guidelines for the parole board to consider.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that what [the bill] is asking us to do elevates a part of our system that is designed as a check and balance and takes it to a place where you are ignoring juries’ [decisions],\u201d Flood said.<\/p>\n
The bill failed to advance from general file on an 18-24 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bill that would allow juveniles serving life imprisonment sentences to petition for a sentence commutation failed to advance from<\/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":[123],"class_list":["post-4253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-brenda-council"],"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\/4253","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=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4257,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions\/4257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}