Palmer stays
As expected, the state Supreme Court
has stayed the execution of death row in
mate Charles Jess Palmer pending the out
come of his appeals through the federal
courts.
Palmer was scheduled to die in the
electric chair Sept. 16. for the 1979 muider
of Eugene Zimmerman of Grand Island.
The order on file with the Clerk of the
Supreme Court today said the stay was
granted so that Palmer, 56, can pursue the
federal appeals process.
Palmer, 56, first was sentenced to death
Aug. 7, 1980. He was convicted of the
murder of Zimmerman, a coin dealer who
was strangled on March 6,1979. A three
judge panel found that Palmer bound
Zimmerman, robbed his place, then re
turned to the bedroom and strangled
Zimmerman so there would be no witness
to the robbery. Murder to conceal the iden
tity of the criminal is one of eight aggravat
ing circumstances in Nebraska’s death pen
alty law.
Palmer has been tried three times and
sentenced to death three times.
More college graduates paying off loans
WASHINGTON—Defaults on student loans
are declining as indebted graduates scramble to
“do what’s right” and the government uses new
tools to dig into their wages and tax refunds in case
they don’t.
Taxpayers are expected to spend $2 bil lion this
year paying ofT uncollected student loans, down
from a peak of $3.6 billion in 1991, Education
Secretary Richard Riley said Thursday.
“After years of rising defaults, it’s going the
other way,” he said.
The proportion of loans in default dropped to
15 percent in 1992 — the latest year for which
figures are available — from a high of 22.4
percent two years earlier.
“What it demonstrates is that the country is not
made up of a bunch of people trying to con the
federal government,” said Leo Komfeld, deputy
assistant education secretary.
“The large majority of people are trying to do
what’s right,” he said.
As usual, federally backed loansforstudentsof
beauty, hair and cosmetology schools were among
the hardest to recover.
The government took its biggest gamble in
Nevada, where three gaming schools joined a
long list of other institutions to drive up the state’s
default rate on student loans to 34 percent, by far
the country’s highest.
Louisiana (23.1 percent), Connecticut (22.3),
Alaska (21.1), Florida(20.9)andCalifomia(20.1)
were the other states where more than one in five
student loans was in default.
Borrowers in Montana, North Dakota and
Vermont were the best at paying up. Less than six
percent of ex-students in those states defaulted on
their loans—defined as going at least six months
without a payment.
The government has toughened student loan
rules in the last few years, lowering the bench
mark for penalizing schools with high default
rates, gamisheeing the wages and income-tax
refunds of delinquent borrowers and making it
harder for them to get credit cards and other loans.
“We can see substantial progress through the
cooperative efforts of Congress, schools and the
Education Department,” Riley said in releasing
the default rates.
“Yet, more progress needs to be made.”
Riley reported a fourfold increase in the amount
“What it demonstrates is that
the country is not made up of
a bunch of people trying to con
the federal government, ”
■
, LEO KORNFELD
Deputy Assistant Education Secretary
of money collected from the income tax refunds of
delinquent borrowers.
The full weight of collection efiorts will bring
in more than $500 million on old and newly
defaulted loans this year, he said.
It was the second straight year defaults have
declined. The rate fell to its lowest level since the
Education Department began reporting the fig
ures in 1986, officials said.
Farmers support conservation program
ABERDEEN, S.D. — Farmers
and conservationists voiced strong
support for con tinuing the Conserva
tion Reserve Program at a congres
sional field hearing Thursday.
But even the most vocal advo
cates, including U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Mike Espy, said the pro
gram needs an overhaul. The CRP,
which pays farmers to leave sensitive
land idle, includes36.4million acres.
Payments are too high in some
areas for land no longer farmed, and
that has forced up rental rates on
nearby farmland, the panel of law
makers was told.
Espy said the CRP has reduced
soil erosion in the United States by
700 million tons a year, improved
wildlife habitat and eased the pres
sure on federal crop support pro
grams by cutting the size of the annu
al harvest.
Farmers who have agreed to take
their land out of production for 10
years receive annual payments total
ing $ 1.8 billion. It is estimated that at
least $1 billion of that would other
wise go to farmers as crop subsidies,
called deficiency payments.
“TheCRP has been a tremendous
benefit,” Espy said. “It has reduced
deficiency payments, strengthened
farm income, and helped supply and
demand.”
Leland Swenson, president of the
National Farmers Union, said the
CRP should be extended for another
decade. But he said it should be
geared only to the most erodeable
lands.
“The program should reward good
stewardship and good conservation
practices rather than be a rescue
program to bail out individuals who
have destroyed fragile habitat or farm
lands which are subject toexception
al erosion,” he said.
The program should be scaled
back to include only that farmland
truly at high risk of erosion, said Carl
Anderson, executive secretary of the
South Dakota Grain and Feed Asso
ciation.
The CRP has done little to boost
crop prices but has hurt the rural
economy by reducing farm spending
in small towns across America, he
said.
“If you look at a lot of small
communities, all that’s left is a grain
elevator, a bar and maybe a church,”
Anderson said.
Diane Beaman, who farms near
Bath, said the CRP “breathed life
back into soil that was ailing and
eroded and very sick.”
Espy said USDA is working on
changes in the program, which will
be debated during consideration of
the 1995 farm bill.
A more pressing problem now for
the CRP is that it is not included in
the federal budget for future years,
Espy said, adding that he is trying to
get that solved in talks with the Con
gressional Budget Office.
Members of the congressional
panel said the CRP should be extend
ed, although budget restraints make
it necessary to revamp the program.
Major changes are likely in the
CRP, Johnson said. Land that should
not have been accepted in the pro
gram may be left out in the future, he
said. Payments may be reduced in
many instances to more accurately
reflect local rental rates on farmland,
he said.
Farmers and representatives of
wildlife, conservation and agricul
tural organ izattons spoke in support
of the CRP. Most favored changes in
the program, but Ron Hepper, who
farms near Isabel, said it should not
be revised.
Alcohol kills
Omaha man
OMAHA—Alcohol was a factor in
the death of an Omaha man who used a
funnel to drink wine and beer quickly,
an autopsy report showed Wednesday.
Corey Ramsey, 18, died Aug. 11 of
positional asphyxia in association with
alcoholic intoxication, Douglas County
Coroner Tom Haynes said.
The technical description means that
his body was positioned in such a way
that he couldn’t breathe, Haynes said.
The autopsy report didn’t detail what
that positioning was, Haynes said.
The night before Ramsey was found
dead, he drank beer and wine through a
homemade funnel, teen-agers who were
with him told police. They said Ramsey
had passed out.
Tests done after Ramsey’s death
showed his blood-alcohol level was. 19,
police reports said. That’s nearly twice
the percentage —.10—at which driv
ers are considered drunk under Nebras
ka law.
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