Season 1, Episode 5

A matter of life and death

A referendum on the death penalty in Nebraska draws our attention to some of the thornier questions about direct democracy.

For decades in Nebraska, people would gather in the parking lot of state prisons to tailgate executions of prisoners on death row. A new crop of state legislators decided to put a stop to the death penalty, but the state’s residents—and its governor—had other plans, and used a ballot initiative to achieve them.

We often think of public policy as having the best interests of society, but given the chance, do individuals vote on what is valued in their communities, or their own personal beliefs? Until now, we’ve explored how people have come together to make changes their lawmakers won’t, but in this episode, we explore another pivotal angle of ballot initiatives.

In This Episode

Colby Coash

Colby Coash, a former Nebraska state senator and a leader of the legislative effort to repeal the death penalty in 2015. Coash became an opponent of the death penalty after an experience he had while attending the University of Nebraska in the 1990s.

Paul Hammel

Paul Hammel, a senior reporter at the Nebraska Examiner who covered the death penalty repeal in 2015 and referendum in 2016 for the Omaha World-Herald. He has won awards for reporting from Great Plains Journalism, the Associated Press, Nebraska Newspaper Association and Suburban Newspapers of America.

Austin Sarat

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College and author of The Death Penalty on the Ballot: American Democracy and the Fate of Capital Punishment.