02 July 2010 :

A Dakota County jury recommended Melecio Camacho-De Jesus be sentenced to death. The same jury convicted Camacho-De Jesus, 30, a Mexican national yesterday of first-degree murder in the May 23, 2009 brutal rape and killing of a 3-year-old girl, Evelyn Verdugo Paniagua. A three-judge panel will be appointed to sentence Camacho-De Jesus. The jury's decision gives the panel the authority to impose a death sentence. If the panel's decision is not unanimous, Camacho-De Jesus will receive a life sentence.

26 March 2010 :

The Senate rejected Legislative Bill 1105 (from Omaha Sen. Brenda Council) on a 22-22 vote. LB 1105 was a proposal to study the cost of the death penalty, and Senators rejected it saying they doubted it would provide accurate information or change anyone's mind. Sen. Council, an opponent of capital punishment, was seeking approval to spend $50,000 so the University of Nebraska at Omaha could do a cost analysis. Council said national studies have shown that the average death penalty case, including trial and execution costs, is between $1 million and $3 million, as opposed to about $500,000 for the average murder case involving a life sentence. She added that between 1973 and 1999, only 3 of the 89 death-penalty trials in Nebraska resulted in an execution. Council said those death-penalty cases cost a total of $45 million, according to a state legislative study. "Questions must be raised about whether the death penalty is a wise and efficient use of taxpayer dollars," she said. Earlier this year (on Jan. 21), the Legislature turned back an attempt by Council to repeal the state's death penalty (LB 306).

11 April 2010 :

Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier has convicted Douglas County's chief crime-scene investigator, David Kofoed, on an evidence tampering charge. Kofoed's sentencing date is set for May 10th. He is facing a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. Kofoed stood trial last week in Cass County where he investigated a double murder in 2006. Kofoed said he found a speck of a victim's blood in a car linked to two suspects. Prosecutors argue he planted or manufactured the evidence to bolster a case against the two men, who were later cleared of murder charges. Kofoed's attorney argued accidental cross-contamination, not sinister motives, explains how his client's test came up positive while searching the car for blood evidence. Kofoed's work came into question after an investigation into the April 17, 2006 murder of Wayne and Sharmon Stock. Early on, the police honed in on Matt Livers and Nick Sampson, cousins of the slain couple. During a heated interrogation, Cass County Sheriff's Investigator Earl Schenk told the mentally-handicapped Livers that unless he confessed, Schenk would do everything in his power to be sure Livers was executed, threatening to "do my best to hang your ass from the highest tree." Livers eventually confessed, implicating himself and Sampson. Livers retracted his confession the next day. Cass County investigators then called in David Kofoed, commander of the Crime Scene Investigation unit for Nebraska's Douglas County who, the day later, claimed to find a drop of blood from one of the victims in a car that was linked to the suspects, though it had already been examined by another forensic investigator. The two suspects were charged with murder. That and Livers' confession could well have resulted in a death sentence for Livers and Sampson. Except that days after Kofoed found the incriminating speck of blood, two Wisconsin teenagers were arrested for the Stocks' murders. They had no tie to Livers and Sampson. And their car was crawling with the Stocks' DNA. In June 2006, both Reid and Fester confessed to killing the Stocks. Overwhelming evidence proved Reid and Fester to be guilty of murder; however, police officers did not drop charges against Livers and Sampson. Officers attempted to cover their tracks by fabricating additional evidence against Livers and Sampson. They attempted to coerce and manipulate Reid, Fester and at least one other witness into implicating Livers and Sampson as co-conspirators in the murders. Finally, on December 6, 2006, the Cass County Attorney dismissed the case against Livers after a State expert found that the officers had used psychological coercion to illicit a confession from a mildly retarded person and that, as a result, the confession was not reliable and could not be used as evidence. Livers and Sampson were released after 7 month in prison. On March 15, 2007 Gregory Fester and Jessica Reid, after pleading guilty to the crimes, have been both sentenced to serve 2 consecutive life sentences. An internal investigation cleared Kofoed and his unit of any wrongdoing. But the FBI conducted its own investigation. Kofoed himself told the World-Herald that FBI agents told him his explanations for how one victim's blood ended up in the ultimately vindicated suspects' car "didn't pass the smell test." According to the Omaha World-Herald, Kofoed was an active self-promoter, making his CSI unit available to other police agencies in Nebraska around the clock. His unit has contracts with 45 police agencies in Nebraska and Iowa. The case has been followed by The Roderick MacArthur Justice Center and the Center on Wrongful Convictions, both located in Chicago at Northwestern University. Other states have also experienced problems with evidence presented in criminal investigations, raising concerns that even scientific evidence can be misleading if mishandled. In Harris County, Texas, four prisoners' convictions were overturned because of faulty work by the Houston crime lab. A 2002 audit found that technicians were poorly trained, kept bad records and had misread data. In San Francisco, prosecutors dismissed more than 250 drug cases because of accusations of evidence tampering in the city's crime lab.

16 September 2010 :

Governor OKs lethal injection mix. Gov. Dave Heineman today approved rules and regulations for executing prisoners with a 3-drug cocktail. His approval clears the way for the state to resume executing people on death row. The regulations will take effect after being filed with the Secretary of State's office, generally a formality. Nebraska has been without a means of execution since February 2008, when the state Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional because it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Nebraska was the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution. Two days ago (Feb. 8) the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the new protocol, saying they concluded that "it is designed to avoid the needless infliction of pain, not to cause it." The new rules and regulations carry out a law passed last year that changed the state's method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. As spelled out in the new rules, Nebraska's execution protocol would be similar to the practices used in other states that carry out the death penalty by lethal injection. It would involve 3 drugs given in succession — an anesthetic, a paralyzing agent and, finally, a drug to stop the prisoner's heart. The rules spell out the order and dosage of the drugs. The warden would to do "consciousness checks" after the 1st drug is administered. The checks are to determine whether the prisoner is anesthetized before giving the 2nd drug, a paralyzing agent. A team of at least 12 people would be required to carry out an execution. None would have to be a licensed health care professional, although 2 team members would have to get training as emergency medical technicians and in drawing blood and starting IV lines. The execution team would include the department director, the Nebraska State Penitentiary warden, the penitentiary staff communicator, at least 7 people to escort the prisoner and a 2-person IV team. The IV team is to start an intravenous line and administer the drugs when the director orders.

01 February 2010 :

A 3-judge panel sentenced Marco E. Torres Jr. to death. Torres, 34, Hispanic, was convicted on Aug. 28, 2009, of killing Timothy Donohue, 48, and Edward Hall, 60, in March 2007. After the jury convicted him, Torres waived his right to have the jury determine the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, so a 3-judge panel was appointed. The judges were: Hall County District Judge James Livingston, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi L. Nelson and Douglas County District Judge Gary B. Randall.