Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — Nebraska's most ardent opponent of capital punishment has accused Attorney General Jon Bruning of trying to gain a campaign advantage by conducting an execution before the election.
Former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha sent Bruning a letter last week chastising him for continuing to push for an execution using death drugs that were allegedly obtained illegitimately. Bruning is seeking the Republican nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Ben Nelson.
"You seem to be counting on the death penalty ... to transmogrify into the beneficent goose that will lay for you the golden egg of a seat in the U.S. Senate," Chambers wrote.
Bruning's campaign manager, Trent Fellers, declined to comment Monday.
Chambers says he intends to run for the north Omaha legislative seat he was forced by term limits to relinquish in 2008.
Much of Chambers' 4½-page letter centers on the state's acquisition of sodium thiopental, the first of three drugs to be used to carry out a lethal injection.
The state's current batch of the drug was acquired by a drug broker in India, who sold it to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. The chief executive officer of the Swiss company that made the drug has asked Nebraska to return it, saying it never was intended to be used in executions.
A lawyer representing death-row inmates Michael Ryan and Carey Dean Moore has argued before the Nebraska Supreme Court that the state was conned into paying $5,411 for stolen drugs.
Last week the state high court dismissed the claim and set a March 6 execution date for Ryan, who is expected to pursue other legal avenues to delay his execution. If he does, it's unclear whether it would take place before the May primary election.
Bruning has argued, publicly and in court, that Nebraska followed all federal laws in acquiring and importing the drug. Bruning also produced documentation from the broker that shows he paid a representative of the Swiss company for the disputed sodium thiopental.
Last week the attorney general said the defense lawyer has turned an irrelevant issue into a circus sideshow intended to delay a sentence that remains on hold nearly 27 years after Ryan killed two people at a religious cult encampment near Rulo, Neb.
"I think it's outrageous that the conversation continues to be about the method of execution as opposed to the brutal murders committed by Michael Ryan and Carey Dean Moore," Bruning said.
Chambers said the conversation must be about the drugs.
"Judges and other mature persons interested in lawful, civilized proceedings are obliged to be concerned about all aspects of how the state goes about killing its citizens," Chambers wrote.
The former lawmaker, who routinely introduced bills to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska, also said if death penalty litigation has turned into a sideshow, Bruning is "the ringmaster and main attraction."
"It was you who started the show by conduct marked by craftiness, disingenuousness, obscurantism and cold-blooded, calculating political expediency that would make Machiavelli blush either with pride or shame," Chambers wrote.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com
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