Nebraska to carry out its first execution in two decades

(Reuters) - Nebraska plans to carry out its first execution in 21 years on Tuesday by delivering a lethal injection to a man convicted of killing two taxi drivers in 1979.

Carey Dean Moore, 60, appears in a police booking photo released in Lincoln, by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, Nebraska, U.S., August 1, 2018. Nebraska Department of Correctional Services/Handout via REUTERS

The state is scheduled to put to death Carey Moore, 60, at 10 a.m. local time (1500 GMT) at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. It would be the first time any state has used fentanyl in a lethal injection.

The drug, 100 times stronger than morphine, has helped fuel the recent national opioid crisis, which has brought a surge in overdose deaths.

If the execution goes forward, it would also mark the first time Nebraska has used a lethal injection to kill an inmate since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. Three executions in the 1990s were by electrocution, state records showed.

Moore, the longest serving prisoner on Nebraska’s death row, was convicted of robbing and fatally shooting drivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. He initially received a death sentence under an “exceptional depravity” statute on the books at that time that amplified punishment, court records showed.

The other drugs in the lethal injection mix are diazepam, typically know as valium, cisatracurium besylate, a paralytic that can halt breathing and potassium chloride, which can cause cardiac arrest.

Court records show Moore has launched no last-minute appeals to spare his life, but the U.S. arm of German drug maker Fresenius Kabi had sued unsuccessfully to prevent the state from using its products in a lethal injection, which it says could harm its reputation. The company claimed the state obtained the drugs through deception.

The state argued in a court filing that it obtained the drugs from a licensed U.S. pharmacy, not by “any fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”

For several years, the death penalty has been a political football in the conservative state. In 2015, Nebraska temporarily became the first Republican-dominated state in more than 40 years to abolish capital punishment.

At the time, the Republican majority in the unicameral legislature said it was banning executions because of religious reservations, difficulty in obtaining lethal injection drugs, the risk of wrongful convictions and unfair implementation of capital punishment.

But Republican Governor Pete Ricketts pushed back and helped place a referendum on the ballot in 2016, which passed and restored capital punishment.

Nebraska has 11 inmates on death row, which ranks among the nation’s smallest. California has 746 inmates on death row, the most of any state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

If the execution is carried out, it would be the 16th in the United States this year.

Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by David Gregorio

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