Inside Wednesday
1 Daily t
Nebraskan
COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901
VOL. 94 NO. 9
Sports
■ NU soccer team wins first game, Page 9
Arts & Entertainment
■ Specialty shop lights up Haymarket, Pagel2
PAGE 2: China ready to discuss human rights
August 31, 1994
Baldwin’s doctors say
supervision not needed
By DeDra Janssen
Senior Reporter
A judge will decide Friday whether former
NU football player Scott Baldwin can be re
leased from the court’s supervision.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Paul
Merritt heard testimony Tuesday from Baldwin’s
doctors and friends, who said he should be
released from the court’s supervision.
Baldwin has been under the eye of the court
since 1992, when he was found not responsible
by reason of insanity in the beating of Lincoln
resident Gina Simanck.
He initially participated in an outpatient treat
ment program for his mental disorder. He later
was committed to the Lincoln Regional Center
after he was shot following an struggle with
Omaha police that left him partially paralyzed.
Baldwin was transferred to Madonna Reha
bilitation Hospital on Christmas Eve 1993 to
participate in an inpatient treatment program.
He has participated in an outpatient treatment
program with the hospital since April.
By court order, Baldwin’s treatment is super
vised by the state, which chooses Baldwin’s
doctors and follows his progress. Baldwin is not
allowed to leave Nebraska.
Scott Moore, a private physician who spe
cializes in psychiatry, said he completed a psy
chiatric evaluation of Baldwin this month.
“At the time I saw Mr. Baldwin, he was not
a danger, neither to himself or anyone else,”
Moore said. “As long as he remains on treat
ment, he will likely not be a danger in the
foreseeable future.”
But Moore said that if Baldwin stopped the
treatment program, he would become dangerous
rapidly.
John Shuart, director of psychology at Ma
donna, said Baldwin understood the need to stay
on medication for his mental disorder.
“He felt initially he did not need the medica
tion,” Shuart said. “Now he realizes that was a
mistake.”
Baldwin is committed to the treatment pro
gram whether he is under court supervision or
not, Shuart said.
Baldwin would be better off without court
supervision, he said.
But County Attorney Gary Lacey argued that
Baldwin should remain under court supervision
for at least one year to determine whether his
outpatient treatment program was successful.
See BALDWIN on 8
Term limits again will be
on Nebraska’s election ballot
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter
Secretary of Slate Allen Beermann said Tues
day that he would pul six issues, including term
1 imits for elected officials, before Nebraskans in
the Nov. 8 election.
Beermann said his office and the county
commissioners in Nebraska had verified 104,000
signatures on a petition to pul term limits on the
ballot. Nebraskans for Term Limits submitted
131,000 signatures.
Investigations into fraudulent signatures con
tinue in Lancaster, Washington, Sarpy and Dou
glas counties, he said.
Nebraska voters approved a term limit law in
the November 1992 election. But the Nebraska
Supreme Court struck down the law this sum
mer, saying the petition drive that got the mea
sure to the ballot didn’t have enough valid
signatures.
The investigations most likely will have no
scriouscffcct on the petition. Beermann said.
The Nebraska Legislature hassubm itted these
issues for the ballot:
• Whether to authorize off-track betting on
horse races.
• Whether to eliminate a state statute that
requires all bills to be read in their entirety to the
Nebraska Legislature before final passage.
• A measure that would give the victims of
crimes certain rights.
• Whether to create a stale commission to
settle tax disputes.
• A measure that would allow for the in
creased use of dispute resolution through arbi
tration and mediation to cut down on the use of
lawsuits.
Grand Island attorney Denny Busick said he
would be challenging those five issues in court
on the grounds that the legislature was too late in
filing the issues.
The five measures were filed two days after
the deadline for ballot issues, Busick said, and
thus arc invalid.
The dispute, Busick said, arises from the
method used to calculate the day the deadline
should be set. He said a statute required the date
to be set four months before Election Day.
Busick said the statute also required that
Election Day not be counted in the determina
tion of the deadline. He said according to his
interpretation of the statute, the deadline would
be July 6. By the attorney general’s interpreta
tion it would be July 7.
The measures off cially were stamped July 8.
“So even using his method he is a day late,”
Busick said.
If the measures were initiatives from the
people of Nebraska rather than from the Legis
lature, Busick said a little latitude should be
allowed. But close is not good enough when it
comes to elected officials, he said.
A suit attempting to block the measures from
getting to the ballot will be filed in the Nebraska
Supreme Court later this week, Busick said.
He said that if the Supreme Court wouldn’t
accept the ease, he would file in Lancaster
County District Court.
Beermann said Busick would have little suc
cess in the matter, because the court had ruled for
the state in similar cases.
Damon Lee/DN
Brian Foster is the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Foster comes to UNL this year from
Arizona state University.
New dean setting goals
By Jamie Karl
Staff Reporter
Just because Arts and Sciences Dean Brian
Foster is the new kid on campus, don’t expect
him to just sit back and watch what’s going
on.
Foster is entering only his second week at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, but he
has his sights set on the college’s future.
“To be successful, we must identify a set
of programs — instructional, research and
service programs — within the college with
which we can be competitive anywhere.”
Foster replaces John Peters, who resigned
last year to take a job at the University of
Tennessee at Knoxville. Foster was dean of
the graduate college at Arizona State Univer
sity forcight years before coming to Lincoln.
“My vision is to identify those areas of
strength and start to build for real excellence,
real international prominence. At the same
time, we must focus on what we can do to
serve the needs of the state in arts and scienc
es.”
That commitment was what caught the
eyes of UNL officials who hired Foster, Joan
Leitzei, senior vice chancellor for academic
affairs, said in May when announcing Fos
ter’s appointment.
“Hisextensiveadministrativeexpcricncc,
his scholarship and his vision of the role of
arts and sciences within a major university
were among the things that impressed me,”
Leitzei said.
Foster received both his master’s and
doctorate degrees in anthropology from the
University of Michigan. He taught anthro
pology at the State University of New York
at Binghamton before moving to Arizona
State, where he served as chairman of ASU’s
anthropology department.
Foster said his experience in anthropology
would make him a good arts and sciences
See FOSTER on 8
Federal judges listen to arguments on Otey’s appeal
Due process was
violated, killer says
By Craig Horst
The Associated Press *
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The demeanor of a
panel of federal judges gave little indication on
Tuesday that convicted murderer Harold Lamont
Otey would avoid becoming the first inmate put
to death in Nebraska in 35 years.
Three judges of the 8 th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals listened to an hour of arguments in what
seemed to be a last-ditch appeal for Otey, con
victed of the 1977 rape and murder of Jane
McManus of Omaha.
A similar panel had decided years earlier it
did not have jurisdiction in the case and sent it
back to a federal judge in Lincoln. The panel
indicated at the time that if it had decided to rule,
it would have rejected Otcy’s appeal.
Otcy’s guilt or innocence is not an issue.
He is seeking a life sentence instead of death
and says his hearing for clemency was tainted
because the state attorney general is one of the
three people who make up the Nebraska Board
of Pardons.
Otey, who is scheduled to die in the electric
chair on Friday, says his right to due process was
violated because the state's top prosecutor sits
See OTEY on 8
Circuit court need
not rule on issue
By Brian Sharp
Senior Reporter
The three-judge panel that listened to argu
ments on Harold Lamont Otcy’s civil rights
appeal Tuesday arc not obligated to rule, a UNL
law professor said.
Mark Eskridge, citing the 1991 Supreme
Court case McClcsky vs. Zandt. said that under
that ruling, Otey could be executed even though
appeals were pending.
“In essence, really, they have 48 hours.”
Eskridge said. “They can delay all they want.
When business is done Thursday ... it’s over.”
Judges on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
listened to arguments in Otey’s civil rights
appeal for about an hour Tuesday in Kansas
City, Mo. The appeal contends that the Board of
Pardons gave Otcy an unfair clemency hearing.
Otcy was convicted of the 1977 rape and
murder of Jane McManus of Omaha. He has
been on death row, fighting his execution for 16
years.
Mike Gooch, assistant public defender, said
he thought the 8th Circuit Court would choose to
rule on the appeal.
“1 would be shocked if they would just put it
See COURTS on 6
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