Voters to decide

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to Sen. Colby Coash's letter, "Too late to fix the death penalty," it made me decide to share some facts about the death penalty debate.

Sen. Coash is on record for saying that the people should have the right to vote on the death penalty, but what most people don't know is that there was an amendment to the death penalty bill that would have placed the decision on the ballot in 2016 and would have eliminated the need for the petition drive.

Sen. Coash voted against it. I guess he thought his votes were more important than Nebraskan voters. It's evident by his words that he wants the death penalty gone in Nebraska, but did you know he has traveled to North Carolina, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Kansas, Arkansas, and Colorado and even to Rome to give talks to anti-death penalty groups on how he worked to get the death penalty repealed in Nebraska?

When I asked him who paid for all this travel and expenses he reluctantly said the organization did. The fact is the organization he represents is financed by George Soros 'and his out-of-state money. It's hard for me to imagine a state leader would work so hard to spare the lives of people who murder, rape and torture innocent people but his words and actions speak volumes.

Almost all of the victims' families of death row inmates support the death penalty, 75-year-old Vivian Tuttle whose daughter was murdered in the brutal bank robbery in Norfolk, collected well over a thousand signatures, so that you the voters would get to decide what happens to the murderer of her daughter.

No one on Nebraska death row claims to be innocent, their appeals say the death penalty is cruel and inhumane. Maybe they should have thought about this before they chose to take an innocent person's life. Nowhere in Sen. Coash's letter does he claim anyone on death row in Nebraska is innocent. And as taxpayers we will be responsible for free legal, medical, as well as room and board for the rest of these murderer's lives .

Lastly, I struggle to see how Sen. Coash can compare an old tractor sitting in a field to a child, son, daughter, mother, husband, these victims were real human beings that cried out when their lives were taken from them.

In closing, I would like to say that I realize that not everyone supports the death penalty and I understand and respect that, but I am satisfied knowing that every vote will be counted and all Nebraskans will decide if Nebraska is a Death Penalty State.

Rick J .Eberhardt

Pierce County Sheriff