Overdue Justice in Nebraska

Martha Stoddard

reports

in the Omaha World-Herald:

LINCOLN -- Maynard Helgeland turned to driving a taxicab because he could do the job with two prosthetic legs.

He had lost his legs as a result of an alcohol addiction that also cost him his marriage and damaged relationships with his three children

But by Aug. 27, 1979, Helgeland had gotten sober and was working to reconnect with his children until he was shot in the head after picking up a fare.

That fare, Carey Dean Moore, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday for killing Helgeland and a second cabdriver five days earlier.

*      *      *

Reuel Van Ness enjoyed the time he spent taking people around Omaha in his taxicab.

He drove the cab to supplement his other jobs. The money came in handy to help support his family of 10 children and stepchildren.

But the job cost Van Ness his life on Aug. 22, 1979, when a fare shot him three times and stole $140.

Mr. Helgeland and Mr. Van Ness were both veterans of the Korean War.  Moore was finally executed today.

The headlines are all about the use of fentanyl and the resumption of executions after a long hiatus, but I think it is good to remember the victims first.

Nebraska's new protocol uses four drugs: diazepam (generic Valium), fentanyl, cisatracurium, and potassium chloride.  I'm not sure why we need to give an anti-anxiety drug first.  Anxiety is part of the punishment.  But I won't dwell on it.  The rest is a variation on the standard approach of anesthetic-paralytic-heart-stopper, substituting new alternatives as the "guerrilla war against the death penalty" (as Justice Alito famously and correctly called it) makes the earlier ones unavailable.

Cisatracurium is not a paralytic, from what I have found.  It is described as a "neuromuscular blocking agent."  The purpose of the second drug in the standard three-drug protocol is to prevent muscle spasms that may be distressing to observers and misinterpreted as signs of pain, and perhaps this substitution provides that effect without the much-criticized effect of blocking signs of actual pain.

Joe Duggan, Paul Hammel, Emily Nitcher, and Martha Stoddard

report

for the World-Herald:

[Moore] is the first inmate executed using the drug fentanyl, a powerful narcotic painkiller that has contributed to the nation's epidemic of drug overdoses. He was put to death despite two federal lawsuits filed last week by drug companies seeking to keep their products from being used.

The state's last execution before Tuesday took place in 1997, when the electric chair was the method. Lethal injection was adopted in 2009 after the state Supreme Court outlawed electrocution as cruel and unusual punishment.

Grant Schulte of AP was a media witness to the execution. 

This AP story

has no byline, but it reports: 

Four media witnesses including an Associated Press reporter saw Carey Dean Moore taking short, gasping breaths Tuesday after the lethal injections started.

His breaths then became deeper and more labored. His chest heaved several times before it went still. Over the course of several minutes, his face turned a slight shade of red and then purple. His eyelids briefly cracked open.

That does not seem out of the ordinary.  Color change is the result of oxygen not flowing to the face, which of course stopping the heart will do.

Overdue Justice in Nebraska curated from Crime and Consequences Blog