Nebraska will now become the 19th state in the US to ban the death penalty, and one of the first traditionally "conservative" states to do so. State lawmakers voted to ban capital punishment in the state, with support coming by a wide enough margin to over-ride the veto that had been promised by Republican Governor Pete Ricketts, who strongly supports the death penalty.

 

Nebraska Lawmakers Vote To Abolish Death Penalty

Alaska (1957)

Connecticut ^A (2012)

Hawaii (1957)

Illinois (2011)

Iowa (1965)

Maine (1887)

Maryland (2013)

Massachusetts (1984)

Michigan (1846)

Minnesota (1911)

Nebraska (2015)

New Jersey (2007)

New Mexico ^A (2009)

New York ^B (2007)

North Dakota (1973)

Rhode Island ^C (1952)

Vermont (1964)

West Virginia (1965)

Wisconsin (1853)

 

ALSO

District of Columbia (1981)

 

 

^A - Connecticut’s and New Mexico’s death penalty repeals were not voted in retro-actively, thus leaving all existing death row inmates on death row, and only abolishing any future capital punishment convictions in the states.

^B - The death penalty was banned in 195 with the exception of individuals found guilty of murdering police officers. Governor Pataki later fully reinstated the death penalty in 1995, but no one was executed in the state before the New York Court of Appeals deemed the state’s death penalty statute as unconstitutional, and later commuted the sentence of the state’s last death row inmate in 2007.

^C - Rhode Island abolished the death penalty in 1852. It was later reinstated in 1872, but no executions were carried out before it was once again abolished in 1984.

I am a pretty conservative guy but am fine with this. Just not a fan of the death penalty...

Interesting that Alaska and Hawaii abolished the death penalty before they even officially became states.