LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Legislature’s staunchest opponent of the death penalty is furious that the state attorney general is asking that the state’s first execution in decades occur on the senator’s birthday.
Attorney General Doug Peterson last week asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to speed up its decision on issuing a death warrant for Carey Dean Moore, who was sentenced to death for the 1979 killings of two Omaha cabbies. The attorney general suggested July 10 or another date in mid-July, because one of the state’s four lethal injection drugs will expire at the end of August.
Chambers told the Omaha World-Herald that he “was really outraged” by Peterson’s request, saying he’s disrespecting the court by drawing them into the political maelstrom over the death penalty.
Peterson’s spokeswoman, Suzanne Gage, says neither Peterson nor his staffers were aware that July 10 is Chambers’ birthday and weren’t sending any message to Chambers.