Omaha World-Herald. October 7, 2016
Program tackles Nebraskans’ legal needs.
Many rural areas in Nebraska have few if any lawyers, and that’s not a laughing matter.
All Nebraskans, regardless of where they live, need proper access to the legal system, whether for wills, real estate transactions, estate or business needs or criminal matters.
Eleven of Nebraska’s 93 counties have no lawyer and 20 other counties have three or fewer attorneys, the Nebraska Bar Association says. In many cases, those lawyers are in their 50s or 60s, with retirement not that far ahead.
Although many rural Nebraska residents are used to driving long distances for many needs, it’s in the public interest for all the state’s citizens to have ready access to legal advice and help.
Several Nebraska institutions deserve a salute for stepping forward to address this need through what’s called the Rural Law Opportunities Program.
It’s a partnership, encouraged by the state bar, in which the University of Nebraska College of Law is working with the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Chadron State College and Wayne State College.
Those three schools will recruit rural students to apply for the program. If the students meet requirements for factors including grade-point average and LSAT score, they will be provisionally accepted by the NU College of Law.
Wayne State has already begun to promote the effort, which takes its inspiration from the existing Rural Health Opportunities Program that aims to boost Nebraska’s number of health care professionals in rural counties.
Nebraskans are all in it together, and it’s in our common interest to ensure that all parts of the state are adequately served. Kudos to the institutions that have joined together on this forward-looking initiative.
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McCook Gazette. October 6, 2016
Options available for young women in crisis pregnancies.
Few issues are more divisive or generate more controversy than abortion, legalized on a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 1973.
“Pro-choice” women and men took to the streets in Poland Monday to derail a complete ban on abortion that was making its way through the national legislature.
In their debate, both vice presidential candidates professed personal opposition to abortion while still differing whether it should be allowed or restricted.
It’s easy to become detached from the debate over pregnancy and personal choice when discussing national policy, but specific cases bring the issue into sharp focus.
One such case is that of a 16-year-old girl, charged as an adult with felony child abuse resulting in death after she allegedly threw her newborn baby out of a second-floor apartment window.
Investigators say she was alone in her bedroom early Friday morning, went into labor and gave birth to the premature, two-pound baby. Authorities say she then threw the infant out the window and told her mother.
The teen and baby were taken to a hospital, where the baby was pronounced dead.
A two-pound premature baby might have had medical struggles, but the tragedy is the baby didn’t get the chance.
That’s especially true because there are so many other options available for scared young women in the same situation.
Locally, there’s the ABC Pregnancy Help Center, 110 West C, 2nd Floor Suite 26, (308) 350-0126.
Statewide, the Nebraska Children’s Home Society offers many services, but admittedly “no easy answers.”
To help find the best answer for the woman and child, the agency offers free and confidential services 24/7, (877) 420-4747.
They include help finding prenatal care, local resources, options for adoption or parenting, education and support to family and friends, the father’s legal rights and responsibilities, and birth parent support groups.
And those are only two of a number of agencies that are ready and willing to help women with crisis pregnancies set a course of action they and their child can live with.
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Lincoln Journal Star. October 7, 2016
Council 4 wasted time and money.
A (writ of) mandamus is an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion. - Wex legal dictionary
Nothing positive should be said about the attempt by Lincoln City Council members Jon Camp, Roy Christensen, Trent Fellers and Cyndi Lamm to get their way on the city budget.
Don’t give them any encouragement to attempt such a thing again.
Their loss in Lancaster County District Court should stand as a clear warning if they or future council members are tempted to pull something like this again.
No one in the capital city should ever be forced to go to court to get council members to “properly fulfill their official duties.”
Christensen, Fellers, Lamm and Camp were not elected to test their legal theories on the taxpayer’s dime.
They ignored decades of precedence, the advice of the current city attorney and previous city attorneys when they decided to insist on their version of the city budget. Fellers, Lamm, Camp and Christensen even ignored an attempt at compromise offered by Councilwoman Leirion Gaylor Baird.
“The plain and ordinary meaning” of Lincoln’s voter-approved City Charter is that the City Council has a duty and obligation to fund the city’s legal budget, according to the decision handed down by Lancaster County District Judge Robert Otte.
The unprecedented action by Lamm, Camp, Christensen and Fellers forced the city attorney to step aside, since he could not represent both sides in the lawsuit. Private attorneys were hired. In the grand scheme of things, the legal expenses may not be huge but there’s no sense in running up the bill.
The four should not compound their error by insisting on appeal. They should let this sorry chapter in the history of City Hall end quickly, and accept the writ of mandamus issued by Otte.
They should do what they should have done in the first place. If they don’t like the balance of power as defined by the City Charter, they should go to voters with a proposed change.
Lincoln has long had a deserved reputation for effective and efficient city government. That’s a tradition worth preserving. Of Nebraska’s 15 largest cities, Lincoln has the sixth lowest property tax rate. Its economy is booming. The town is infused with optimism.
The court battle forced by four members of the City Council was a case of Washington-style dysfunction spreading to the local level. These negative tactics need to end. Now.
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Kearney Hub. October 7, 2016.
Sheriffs got it wrong on capital punishment.
It isn’t much of a surprise that the Nebraska Sheriffs Association is supporting capital punishment. With less than one month before Nebraskans vote whether to continue the death penalty, the Sheriffs Association announced at its annual conference in Kearney that its members believe in execution.
While it’s not a surprise that one of our state’s major law enforcement associations supports capital punishment, it’s surprising the sheriff’s association is employing some of the best arguments against the death penalty in its campaign.
Consider the five bullet points in the sheriffs association’s argument for executions:
1) The death penalty is used sparingly for the worst murderers. That is true. During the past 43 years, there have been 1,842 homicides in Nebraska, and only 10 prisoners now are on death row. If capital punishment was deemed inappropriate in those hundreds of other murders, how can it be justified in just a handful of homicides?
2) The death penalty fits the crimes for the 10 men on death row. Killing another person is a brutal act. Since 1973, more than 1,800 Nebraskans have been murdered, yet only a handful of killers face the ultimate punishment. How is that fair to all those victims?
3) The death penalty is a useful tool for prosecutors in plea bargaining. This is among the worst arguments for the death penalty. Prosecutors should never use the threat of execution to coerce false confessions, and it’s happened in Nebraska. The Beatrice Six, now exonerated, falsely confessed because they feared execution.
4) The death penalty protects public safety. A dead murderer cannot kill again, goes this argument, but modern prisons ensure killers will stay safely locked up. It’s unnecessary to execute anyone for the public’s protection.
5) The death penalty protects law enforcement - especially corrections officers - who might be a target. There is conflicting evidence that the threat of capital punishment is a deterrent against murder, even for prisoners who kill jailors or other inmates.
The sheriffs association has the public’s interest at heart, but each of the organization’s arguments is easily refuted. Too bad the sheriffs didn’t see the logic of replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.
When Nebraskans decide the death penalty question on Nov. 8, we hope voters think about the future and how prison officials will be unable to carry out the execution mandate if voters say “yes” to capital punishment. It’s been almost 20 years since Nebraska’s last execution because the drugs for our state’s death chamber protocol are unavailable and because court decisions are trending against capital punishment.
Life in prison is a better solution.
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