VADP

Electrocution: "Cruel & Unusual"

AP    8Feb08

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state's sole means of execution, ruling that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment.

The landmark ruling is likely a fatal blow to a means of execution that has teetered in the courts for years and been recognized by other states as legally vulnerable. Nebraska was the only state in the country with the electric chair as its sole means of execution.

The high court made the ruling in the case of Raymond Mata Jr., convicted for the 1999 kidnapping and killing of 3-year-old Adam Gomez of Scottsbluf f.In its ruling, the high court said the evidence shows that electrocution inflicts "intense pain and agonizing suffering" and that "(electrocution) has proven itself to be a dinosaur more befitting the laboratory of Baron Frankenstein than the death chamber" of state prisons.

The court added that the Legislature may vote to have a death penalty, just not one that offends constitutional rights.