LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The Nebraska Supreme Court has denied a defense attorney’s request to remove the state’s attorney general’s office from death row inmate Michael Ryan’s case.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican says the court found the arguments in support of the motion to be “unpersuasive and without merit” in an order filed Wednesday.
Ryan’s attorney, Jerry Soucie, made the request because of circumstances in the case.
Soucie says Attorney General Jon Bruning’s office had advised the state’s Department of Correctional Services on buying supplies of the lethal-injection drug sodium thiopental. The first batch was ruled to have been illegally imported.
A spokeswoman with the attorney general’s office says there was no legitimate reason for it to be recused from the case.
Ryan has been sentenced to death for killing James Thimm in 1985.
Bruning has asked the Supreme Court to set an execution date for Ryan, but that request is pending.