[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO.,OKLA., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 19



MISSOURI:

Missouri's parole board lumbers on in secrecy with unfilled seats


MISSOURI BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE

The 7-member board is responsible for determining whether a person confined in 
the Department of Corrections shall be paroled or conditionally released and 
for supervising all persons on probation and parole. The 5 existing members 
were appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon:

Seat 1 -- Vacant

Seat 2 -- Jimmie Lee Wells (D)

The former sheriff of Pike County lives in Bowling Green

Term began: Feb 16, 2009

Term expired: Feb 16, 2015 (Still serving)

Seat 3 -- Vacant

Seat 4 -- Board Chairman Ellis McSwain Jr. (D)

Former warden at Algoa Correctional Center. Lives in Jefferson City

Term began: Sep 18, 2009

Term expired: Aug 28, 2012 (Still serving)

Seat 5 -- Martin Rucker (D)

Former state representative from St. Joseph.

Term began: Feb 14, 2011

Term expires: Apr 3, 2016

Seat 6 -- Don Ruzicka (R)

Former state representative from Mt. Vernon.

Term began: Dec 21, 2012

Term expires: Dec 20, 2018

Seat 7 -- Kenneth C. Jones (R)

Former Moniteau County sheriff and former state representative

Term began: Feb 9, 2012

Term expires: Dec 10, 2017

Source: State of Missouri, Post-Dispatch

BY THE NUMBERS

Missouri Board of Probation and Parole

7 members

2 vacancies

2 members serving on expired terms

$83,574, board member salary, 2014

100 Number of hearings parole board members says they hear in a week.

31,908 Missouri prison population, 2014

31,057 Missouri prison population, 2012

16,172 number of parolees, 2014

17,833 number of parolees, 2012

84.3 % of hearings that resulted in parole, 2014

$57 daily cost of incarceration

$6 daily cost of probation and parole supervision

[source: State of Missouri]

----

The area around North Kingshighway and Cote Brillante Avenue has changed a lot 
since Cranston Mitchell grew up there in the 1950s. McBride High School closed. 
DePaul Hospital moved on, and so did many of the doctors and educators.

Mitchell's field of expertise in criminal justice has also undergone a 
metamorphosis.

"My God," he said, about starting on the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole 
in the early 1980s, a position he held nearly two decades. "There were 3 of 
us."

Back then, they weighed cases for Missouri's roughly 6,000 inmates and kept 
tabs on others the board released from prison with terms to abide by.

Today's parole board has 7 seats in a state with 32,000 inmates and thousands 
more supervised in the community.

It's still a full-time job. Each member of the independent board might hear 25 
cases in a day.

Yet while state statute requires the board to have 7 members, 2 of the seats 
have been sitting vacant, 1 since June, the other since February 2014.

"That says to me that if you don't have the 7 people, then how good is the job 
being done?" said Mitchell, 68, who went on to be appointed to the U.S. Parole 
Commission by President George W. Bush, then reappointed by Barack Obama. "It's 
a pressure-packed position for those people who take it very seriously in terms 
of a public safety issue."

A vice chairman is also supposed to be in charge of the parole board's 
operations, funds and expenditures. Currently, there isn't a vice chairman.

As governor, Jay Nixon, a Democrat, is responsible for parole board 
appointments. The state Senate confirms them.

"The governor has been real slow in making his recommendations on 
appointments," Senate President Ron Richard, R-Joplin, chairman of the 
gubernatorial appointments committee, said in an interview last week.

He said Nixon, who has also fallen behind by letting filled seats expire beyond 
the 6-year term, should reappoint sitting members of the parole board and other 
boards if they are to remain.

Other critics, including people who held leadership positions for the Missouri 
Department of Corrections, want the parole board to be reformed.

They say it operates almost entirely in secret and has become a plum place for 
former lawmakers to land since term limits went into place. The position pays 
$83,574 a year, not counting retirement benefits. Members get access to state 
cars to criss-cross Missouri to attend hearings at the state's 21 prisons.

3 out of the 5 current members served in the state Legislature. (The other 2 
have law enforcement backgrounds, including a former sheriff.)

Others say the Missouri board is too hesitant in granting parole. In the past 
few years, the number of offenders on parole in the state has dropped to just 
over 16,000, from a peak of nearly 18,000.

Critics say that not only raises prison costs, but potentially threatens public 
safety. When an inmate leaves prison on parole, the state can keep tabs on him 
through drug screening, anger management and substance abuse programs. That's 
not the case for those who walk out of the corrections system after completing 
their sentences.

Mitchell, who has trained parole boards, said former lawmakers have ended up on 
parole boards across the country.

"I found that finding a spot for a defeated or retired incumbent to rest their 
feet is not always a good thing," he said. "There's just a different kind of 
motivation."

"You can get an individual in those kinds of positions who has a particular 
philosophical bend and are not very willing to take a broader view," he added. 
"The wrong person in that job can be a real detriment."

But he said it really depends on the individual. All former politicians don't 
make bad parole board members.

Rather, Mitchell asked: "What is the litmus test in terms of the governor with 
that job?"

'A LOT OF WORK'

Nixon, a former prosecutor, declined to comment through his spokesman Scott 
Holste. "The governor takes very seriously the responsibility of making 
nominations to the board for Senate approval, and is actively working to select 
qualified candidates," Holste said by email. He didn't respond to concerns 
raised about the board's performance and being stacked with former lawmakers.

According to state statute, no more than 4 board members can be part of the 
same political party. Currently, 3 are Democrats, 2 are Republicans.

While the number of filled seats is 5, a majority vote is still needed among 
the parole board to take significant action on a case involving violent crime. 
Just one member of the board is required to hear and vote on cases involving 
property and drug crimes.

Ellis McSwain Jr., chairman of the parole board, wasn't available for comment 
either, said David Owen, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

The lack of public comment adds to the legacy of secrecy of a board that weighs 
anything from low-level felonies such as forgery to death penalty cases. Their 
meetings with inmates aren't public. Nor are the reasons why parole board 
members vote the way they do.

"How do they make decisions in death penalty or clemency cases, or any cases?" 
asked Janet Barton, who retired in 2013 as the parole board's operations 
manager. "You have a parole board that is advising the governor on the death 
penalty, but their votes are not public record."

Barton, who worked for the parole board for more than 3 decades, recalled when 
members used to be promoted from within the corrections department.

"They were dedicated," she said. "They believed that offenders could change, 
that parole served the best interest of public safety."

Then, in the 1990s, she said former lawmakers started showing up "looking for a 
job that brought a tidy salary and some benefits to them. And the fact that it 
was in parole was secondary."

Joseph Knodell has seen how parole board vacancies and politics mix. At the 
tail end of Gov. Matt Blunt's administration, Knodell said, he was asked to 
briefly sit on the board. His stint lasted 6 months so that the outgoing 
governor could later fill the post with a trusted staffer.

"They were looking for places for people to land," Knodell, 69, said. "That was 
OK. It's a position that kind of wears on you. You are sitting across from 
murderers and rapists."

Knodell, a former school superintendent near Poplar Bluff, said the job pays 
well compared to other state positions. He called it a "plum position" 
governors have at their disposal.

"(The seats) should be filled because there is a lot of work," he said of the 
vacancies. "Believe it or not, when I say it is a plum position, there is still 
a lot of work involved."

Richard Lee, who served on the parole board in the early 2000s, said he is 
"fearful" where Missouri is headed. He said the state needs a parole board with 
the professionalism to weigh the merits of each case, free of politics and with 
more transparency.

Most people who are sent to prison eventually return to the community. Lee said 
parole can be a tool to improve that transition.

"It's hard to release a murderer, but you have to have the ability to do that," 
said Lee, 61, whose background is in law enforcement. Otherwise, he said, 
people become institutionalized, unable to function on their own.

State figures show the parole board is granting parole in about 84 % of cases. 
But critics say those figures offer an incomplete picture, because many are 
refused parole until the tail end of their prison term.

Lee said more attention is needed on the credentials of those on the board.

"I'd like to see some change in the parole board and the selection process," he 
said. "I'd like to see standards for board members. I'd like to see them make 
it more of a diverse group."

For years, he said Missouri was a leader in probation and parole.

"You saw a lot of people at the national level who had Missouri ties," he said. 
"I hope we can continue to lead that path."

'WEIGHING THE RISKS'

In a meeting last week in Jefferson City, members of Empower Missouri, a social 
justice organization, said they also want parole board reform. "Our concern is 
there are people who could be released from prison without destroying our 
society," Ted Schroeder, a former pastor in north St. Louis, said at the 
meeting. Nicole Porter, of the Washington-based Sentencing Project, which 
advocates for alternatives to incarceration, said at the meeting via conference 
call that victims' families often have heavy influence on whether an inmate is 
paroled.

"Punishment is 1 reason why prisons exist, but it's not the only reason," she 
said. "Parole boards should be about weighing the risks of whether or not 
potential parolees pose a risk to public safety."

According to a draft copy of an Empower Missouri policy paper about parole, 1 
in 9 prisoners in Missouri is serving at least 50 years in prison.

Republican lawmakers have taken note.

"We don't need to be building another prison, we need to be cutting some people 
loose who are in there for minute reasons," House Corrections Committee 
Chairman Paul Fitzwater, R-Potosi, said in an interview. "We have a lot of 
nonviolent criminals who are locked up, and we are spending $25,000 to $30,000 
a year to keep them housed."

He said he recently worked hard to release Jeff Mizanskey, of Sedalia, who was 
21 years into serving life without the possibility of parole for marijuana.

"We spent over $600,000 housing this guy on a marijuana charge," Fitzwater 
said. "Now think about that."

Nixon commuted Mizanskey's sentence to life with the possibility of parole. The 
parole board heard his case this summer. He was released Sept. 1.

SEEKING CHANGES

Rep. Caleb Jones, R-Columbia, is seeking changes to the parole system. Last 
legislative session, he filed a bill to put a 2-week limit on the amount of 
time the board could spend to make a decision on each case. Rep. Penny Hubbard, 
D-St. Louis, a former parole board member, encouraged Jones to lengthen the 
time requirement because of the heavy caseload. Sometimes they do 25 hearings 
per day with inmates, she said.And then they need to review cases that other 
board members heard.

"If they are doing it fresh, without pressure and not being worn out, they make 
better decisions and can collectively review the cases and be fair," Hubbard 
said.

The bill didn't get out of committee, but Jones said he wants to try again.

His motivation isn't to help inmates. Rather, it is to ease fears for crime 
victims waiting to hear if the offender who attacked them will be kept in 
prison or allowed to go free.

"As a victim myself, I understand how stressful that is," Jones said.

Jones' mother, Pam, was slain in 1991 in front of her family at a Christmas 
party.

The assailant, who also killed 3 law enforcement officials, was never up for 
parole. He was executed by the state in 2002.

Pam Jones was also the wife of Kenny C. Jones, the former sheriff and 
Republican state representative from central Missouri.

Kenny Jones is currently 1 of the 5 members of the parole board.

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)






OKLAHOMA:

New questions about destroyed evidence could put Glossip case back in federal 
court


Oklahoma City Police released its report detailing the evidence from the murder 
of Barry Van Treese at the request of Fox 25. The report was never provided to 
attorneys who represented Richard Glossip in his second trial or his appeals 
according to his new defense team who received the report following a Fox 25 
Investigation that aired the eve of his scheduled execution.

The 1999 police report lists the contents of the box of property marked for 
destruction because the appeals were exhausted. In reality, the appeals process 
had just begun for Glossip. Listed as contents were: "1 roll of duct tape; 1 
bag with duct tape; 1 envelope with note; 1 bag with glasses; 1 bag with 
wallet, knifes [sic], keys; 1 bag with white shower curtain; 1 white box with 
papers; 1 deposit book; 2 receipt books."

While the state conceded in the second trial it had no physical evidence 
linking Richard Glossip to the motel room murder scene his new defense team 
says the police report discovered during the Fox 25 investigation is a document 
they had never seen and was never provided to his defense attorneys.

"You're supposed to preserve it and all of us have a duty as lawyers, 
especially the prosecution has a duty to maintain custody of any evidence that 
is in any investigation of any criminal offense," said Oklahoma City defense 
attorney Garvin Isaacs. Isaacs is a noted defense attorney, but he spent part 
of his career in the prosecutor's office, but he is not connected to the 
Glossip case. Isaacs says the destruction of evidence is, to say the least, a 
big deal.

"When you destroy a piece of evidence," Isaacs told Fox 25, "That raises the 
inference in the law that that evidence is against you. Isaacs says what that 
means is when a party destroys evidence, the jury should be instructed to take 
that as an admission of guilt. Isaacs read from the book he calls the "Bible 
for defense attorneys," in describing what the destruction of evidence means 
for prosecutors. "He is said to give ground to believe his case is weak and not 
to be won by fair means," Isaacs read.

But who ordered the destruction?

Police say no one knows, and it could have been the district attorney's office 
or it could have been a police error. Today's police policy would prohibit the 
destruction of any evidence from a homicide case. The police department says no 
one listed on the report is still employed by the police department, so Fox 25 
tracked down the detective whose name is on the report.

She has since retired but told us she doesn't remember that specific box. 
However she said when evidence was marked for destruction, the district 
attorney's office would call a police supervisor who would send her to get 
boxes of evidence. She said she never had access to the property room and 
someone from the DA's office would have had to have given her that specific box 
and it would have been marked with the case information and contents.

Glossip's case had been ruled on, but according to online court records the 
destruction of evidence was ordered just days after the appeals court had 
ordered the case back to an Oklahoma County courtroom for a "fact finding" 
hearing.

The detective who transferred the box of evidence was never associated with 
Glossip's case. And her report sat apparently unnoticed until the eve of 
Glossip's execution.

That is a troubling prospect says Isaacs. "It really troubles me; it scares me 
that Glossip's an innocent man; it scares me that at no time have we known all 
these things until now."

Isaacs says regardless of what the Oklahoma courts do in the case the issue of 
destroyed evidence is important enough it could open the door to new federal 
court appeals. Glossip's attorneys say they plan to supplement their filing to 
the Court of Criminal Appeals.

(source: okcfox.com)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty repeal appears to be on hold


Nobody really doubted the death penalty referendum petition campaign would have 
enough signatures verified to hold up the Legislature's repeal.

The campaign turned in nearly 167,000 signatures, when it needed 113,883, and a 
state-required cushion of slightly more than 125,000.

It's not yet official, but the Secretary of State's office said Friday it 
appears enough petition signatures have been certified and verified to stop the 
death penalty repeal from becoming law until a vote of the people in November 
2016.

Chris Peterson, who co-managed the petition campaign along with Jessica 
Flanagain, a privately paid senior aide to Gov. Pete Ricketts, said they only 
were surprised at the speed with which county clerks and election commissioners 
were verifying signatures. They had until mid-October.

"I'm guessing that must mean the county reviews of the petitions haven't 
encountered many hiccups. That's a credit to the hard work of our circulators 
and our petition drive's focus on compliance," Peterson said.

The senator who brought the repeal bill to the Legislature -- Omaha Sen. Ernie 
Chambers -- even said it was a forgone conclusion the signatures would be 
obtained. But he's confident, he said, that the repeal (LB268) will take 
effect.

The election will not turn out the way the Ricketts family wanted, and what 
they financed, he said.

"I feel a deep, settled sense of serenity and peace about the whole thing," he 
said. "I've never had the sense of confidence and serenity that I feel now."

Opponents of the death penalty have more than a year to make their case, he 
said. The Catholic bishops have indicated they will also give the message to 
their hundreds of thousands of followers that the death penalty should not be 
reinstated.

The Secretary of State's office spokeswoman Laura Strimple said Friday that 68 
counties have certified their final numbers to Gale's office. At least 38 
counties have certified their numbers to meet both the 5 percent threshold to 
require a vote on the repeal, and it appears more than enough signatures -- 
120,479 -- have been both certified and verified to meet the 10 % threshold to 
put a hold on the repeal for the next 14 months until a vote, she said.

In May, the Legislature voted to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska and then 
overrode a veto of the bill by Ricketts. Almost immediately, death penalty 
supporters said they'd petition to put the issue to a vote and to prevent the 
law from taking effect this summer.

"While it would appear the death penalty repeal is very likely to be stayed, we 
will be waiting until we reach a level of certified signatures of 110 percent 
before reaching that declaration," Gale said.

Counties still verifying signatures will continue until they certify their 
final numbers to Gale's office, Strimple said.

The Lancaster County election office has verified 18,124, signatures, has 
rejected 3,183 and has 162 pending.

Stephen Griffith, Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty executive 
director, said that assuming the death penalty repeal gets to the ballot, he 
also is confident that when Nebraskans know the facts, they will agree with the 
Legislature and reject the death penalty.

"I grew up in Nebraska ... and I think Nebraskans are fair-minded," he said. 
"If we approach each other reasonably, people are open to hearing honest 
viewpoints, so we're ready for an open and energetic and spirited conversation 
on the death penalty with Nebraska voters."

A lawsuit was filed this week against the petition referendum process alleging 
it is invalid because Ricketts intentionally was not named in the list of 
sponsors. In the suit, Nebraskans for Public Safety says it believes he is the 
"primary initiating force" behind the petition effort. State law requires all 
sponsors be named.

Ricketts followed up his effort to veto the bill by donating at least $200,000, 
and his father Joe Ricketts donating $100,000 to the petition campaign.

A spokeswoman for Ricketts said Friday that just because the governor supports 
the effort does not make him a sponsor of it.

"This is yet another example of special interests using the courts in an 
attempt to thwart the will of the voters," said spokeswoman Brittany Hardin.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said the Nebraska Constitution provides 
that when 10 percent of voters are verified to have signed a referendum, the 
law is suspended until a vote is taken.

In this case, the vote would be Nov. 8, 2016.

But even if the state has the death penalty, it does not have the means to 
carry out an execution by lethal injection. Several months ago, Department of 
Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes ordered lethal injection drugs 
sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide from a distributor in India.

At least part of the sodium thiopental was shipped last month, but did not make 
it out of the country before being returned to the sender, according to forms 
provided by the Corrections Department.

Frakes said in an email that the drug was returned to Chris Harris of 
HarrisPharma for further international review.

(source: JournalStar)

*******************

120,479 verified signatures: Effort to reverse Nebraska's death penalty repeal 
hits another milestone


A federal prosecutor has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to weigh 
in on whether Nebraska officials are violating the law in their efforts to 
import a disputed death penalty drug.

Last month, the ACLU of Nebraska prodded federal prosecutors to investigate 
Nebraska's attempts to import sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs the state needs 
to carry out an execution. The FDA has said the drug is not approved in this 
country and it would be illegal to import a foreign-made version of the 
substance.

U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said in a recent letter her office was unable to 
determine whether criminal or civil laws were broken. She has since sought 
further guidance from the Office of the Inspector General for the FDA.

Jan Sharp, chief of the general crimes unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office in 
Omaha, said Friday he was awaiting the FDA's response.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has said the state is in communications with federal 
officials to obtain $54,400 worth of lethal injection drugs it purchased 
earlier this year from a broker in India.

Earlier this month, however, a private shipping company returned a package of 
the disputed drug that was bound for Nebraska before it even left India.

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale reported Friday that 120,479 signatures 
have been both certified and verified to his office. That would surpass a 
threshold of 10 % of the state's registered voters, or 113,883 signatures, 
necessary to suspend the repeal of the death penalty until a referendum is held 
on the issue during the November 2016 general election.

Gale said he won't put a final stamp on the petition drive until 110 % of the 
signature requirement - 125,271 signatures - are certified and verified.

"This is not an official certification yet," he said Friday.

His report noted that 17,849 signature have been rejected so far. Petition 
organizers submitted nearly 167,000 total signatures last month.

The drive needs to meet a 2nd requirement, exceeding the 10 % threshold in at 
least 38 of the state's 93 counties, but that may happen as early as next week, 
a spokeswoman for the office said.

This spring, the Nebraska Legislature abolished capital punishment by 
overriding a veto from Gov. Pete Ricketts. It was a historic vote, making 
Nebraska the 1st conservative state in 4 decades to repeal the death penalty.

Death penalty supporters immediately announced plans to gather signatures for a 
voter referendum on the issue. A week ago, the Secretary of State's office 
announced that the referendum drive had met a lower threshold, 5 % of all 
registered voters, needed to place the issue on the 2016 ballot.

On Friday, the Secretary of State also released the ballot language as written 
by Attorney General Doug Peterson.

Chris Peterson, the spokesman for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the group 
behind the petition drive, said Friday marked a significant milestone.

"For supporters of the death penalty, its been important all along to ensure 
capital punishment remain the law of the land until voters have their say in 
November 2016," Chris Peterson said.

Meanwhile, death-penalty opponents filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to 
nullify the referendum. The lawsuit, however, did not request a temporary 
injunction to halt the referendum process until the legal issues are decided.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who sponsored the repeal legislation, said 
Friday while the effective date of the repeal may be suspended, it remains the 
law until voters say otherwise. And if the lawsuit fails to stop the 
referendum, Chambers said he believes repeal supporters ultimately will 
prevail.

"Serenity is what I feel at this point," Chambers said. "And I feel supremely 
confident the will of the Legislature to repeal the death penalty will stand."

Putting the repeal on hold also raises questions about whether the state could 
pursue an execution before the referendum could be held in about 14 months. The 
attorney general has not said if his office will ask the Nebraska Supreme Court 
to issue a death warrant before the public vote is taken.

As of now, the state lacks two of the drugs it needs to carry out a lethal 
injection and it remains in doubt whether it will be able to obtain the drugs.

Chambers argued there is no way the court would allow an execution before a 
vote of the people, especially with unsettled legal questions surrounding the 
petition and the lethal injection drugs.

Stephen Griffith, director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, 
said Friday he was disappointed but not surprised to learn of the latest 
numbers. Petition organizers turned in close to 167,000 total signatures last 
month.

"I believe when Nebraska voters know the facts, they'll agree with the 
Legislature and vote to repeal the death penalty," Griffith said Friday.

Ricketts and other backers of the death penalty say that the Legislature was 
out of touch and that rank-and-file citizens support keeping capital 
punishment.

Nebraskans for Public Safety, the group that formed to defend the repeal, filed 
a lawsuit Thursday to nullify the referendum drive. The lawsuit claims it had a 
fatal flaw because it failed to list as a sponsor Ricketts, a leading financier 
of the referendum. The law requires all sponsors of petition drives to be 
listed.

A Ricketts spokeswoman responded to the lawsuit Friday, saying the governor's 
support for the death penalty doesn't make him a "sponsor" of a referendum to 
restore capital punishment.

"This is yet another example of special interests using the courts in an 
attempt to thwart the will of the voters," spokeswoman Brittany Hardin said.

The Republican governor has been a vocal and financial backer of the drive, and 
his privately funded political consultant helped coordinate the 
signature-collection effort.

Chambers, who worked for 4 decades to repeal the death penalty, said that it 
was wrong to demean the effort to block the referendum.

Just as citizens have the right to petition, they also have the right to go to 
court and challenge what they feel is unlawful, he said.

"What the governor and his people seem to say is that the only people who have 
a right to act under the law and the constitution are those who agree with 
them," the senator said.

The lawsuit also alleges that Ricketts violated his oath of office by seeking 
to overturn a state law, rather than working to uphold it.

"Gov. Ricketts has been clear that he believes the death penalty is a valuable 
public safety tool and he supports giving the voters of Nebraska the 
opportunity to retain it," Hardin said. "Just because the governor supports the 
effort does not make him a sponsor of the petition drive."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

***************

US attorney sends lethal injection docs to watchdog agency


The U.S. attorney's office in Nebraska says it can't determine whether state 
officials violated federal law in their efforts to obtain lethal injection 
drugs, so prosecutors have forwarded key documents to a watchdog agency for 
further review, according to a letter released Friday.

Prosecutors examined the documents last month at the request of the American 
Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, which accused Gov. Pete Ricketts and state 
officials of trying to import the foreign-made drugs illegally.

In an Aug. 25 letter to the ACLU of Nebraska, U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said 
her office sent the documents to the Food and Drug Administration's Office of 
the Inspector General and will decide whether to take action based on that 
agency's report.

"We are unable to determine from the materials whether or not any federal 
criminal or civil statutes are implicated," Gilg said.

Nebraska currently has no way to execute inmates because it lacks 2 of the 3 
required lethal injection drugs for its protocol.

The state paid $54,400 in May for drugs from Harris Pharma, a distributor in 
India, but the FDA has said Nebraska can't legally import them. An attempt to 
ship them to the United States via FedEx was thwarted late last month because 
the delivery service company said the drugs didn't have proper paperwork for 
international transport.

Ricketts has said state officials are working with the Drug Enforcement 
Administration to import the required drugs - sodium thiopental and pancuronium 
bromide - so Nebraska can resume executions. He also has argued that the review 
sought by the ACLU of Nebraska was politically motivated because the group 
opposes the death penalty.

Lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May, overriding Ricketts' veto, but 
supporters of the punishment launched a petition drive to suspend the repeal 
until voters decide the issue in November 2016. On Thursday, death penalty 
opponents filed a lawsuit arguing the petition drive was invalid.

Danielle Conrad, executive director of ACLU of Nebraska, said she was pleased 
that the U.S. attorney's office took the matter seriously.

"The FDA and the U.S. attorney's office should give this matter their full 
attention to assure Nebraskans that their tax dollars aren't being used to 
violate the law," Conrad said.

A phone message that The Associated Press left with the U.S. attorney's office 
wasn't immediately returned.

The DEA has said Nebraska is legally registered to import drugs, but can be 
blocked from doing so if other federal agencies object. In a July 13 letter to 
Nebraska corrections director Scott Frakes, a DEA administrator said the FDA 
raised legal concerns about the state's efforts.

(source: Associated Press)