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Nebraskan —
baseball team’s winning
Tuesday, April 25,2000 dailyneb.com Vol 99, Issue 147 streak growsater doubleheader
*7’ ^ ^ victory. SPORTS, PAGE 16
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Professor named interim chancellor
■ Former dean of the law college
will take over UNLs highest post in
mid-July after James Moeser leaves.
By Kimberly Sweet
Staff writer
An NU law professor will take the tempo
rary reins as head of UNL’s campus after
Chancellor James Moeser heads for the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
University of Nebraska President Dennis
Smith announced Monday that he appointed
Harvey Perlman, a law professor and former
dean of the law college, to the post of interim
chancellor.
He will begin July 16, a day after Moeser’s
scheduled last day at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Moeser announced on April 14 that he
would leave UNL to become chancellor of the
flagship campus of the UNC system.
Smith said in a statement that he chose
Perlman, 58, because of his administrative
experience at the university.
Along with being the former dean of the
law college, Perlman served as the acting sen
ior vice chancellor for academic affairs during
the 1995-96 school year.
“Harvey Perlman brings experience,
expertise and sound judgment to the position of
interim chancellor,” Smith said. “He is a
respected faculty member who has a wealth of
administrative experience.”
As an administrator in both the law college
and the office of academic affairs, Perlman
said he is in a good position to take on the tem
porary duties.
“I’ve worked with a lot of the people I will
be working with now,” Perlman said. “I have a
sense of the concerns of the various colleges.
“I haven’t been gone so long to not have a
sense of the planning going on, the initiatives
in place and the restraints that the university
currently faces.”
Perlman said he is not sure what issues will
take priority during his time as interim chan
cellor.
But he said filling vacant positions and
preparing for the next legislative session are
immediate tasks.
“I’m sure there will be some surprises,” he
said.
Perlman said he saw his job as one of guid
ing, rather than taking over.
“I think one of the rules of administration is
to support the faculty and allow them to
achieve the opportunities they have,” he said.
Along with acting as the senior vice chan
cellor for academic affairs during the 1995-96
academic year, Perlman was one of the candi
•* I think this is an
extremely good
appointment.”
Richard Edwards
senior vice chancellor for academic affairs
dates to fill that position permanently.
Richard Edwards, the current senior vice
chancellor, was chosen instead.
Perlman said he was “not really” interested
in holding the position as chancellor of UNL
permanently.
Please see CHANCELLOR on 8
Be Very, Very Quiet
III I mi —i———————I I II l—llll 11 II
Heather Glenboski/DN
LARRY HAYNE, A RESEARCH TECHNOLOGIST for the University, takes a nap over the lunch hour Monday afternoon on East Campus. Many
faculty and students were outside taking advantage of the sunny weather, which resulted in highs In the upper 60s.
I__—I
Tensions rise as abortion case nears
■ Stenberg, Carhart
voice their final opinions
before today’s case.
By Brian Carlson
Staff writer
WASHINGTON, D C. - One
day before their duel in the U.S.
Supreme Court over the constitu
tionality of Nebraska’s ban on
what many have called partial
birth abortions, Don Stenberg and
Dr. LeRoy Carhart squared off in
news conferences Monday.
Today at 10 a.m. EDT (9 a.m.
CDT), the Supreme Court will
hear oral arguments in Stenberg
vs. Caxhart, the first abortion case
the court has heard since 1992.
The court’s ruling could affect
laws in 30 states that have banned
partial-birth abortions and set an
important precedent in abortion
jurisprudence.
Stenberg, Nebraska’s attorney
general, will defend the state’s
ban on partial-birth abortions,
which became law in 1997 but has
been blocked from being
enforced by lower courts.
Carhart, a doctor who pro
vides abortions at his clinic in
Bellevue, challenged the law’s
constitutionality just days after its
passage.
Both the U.S. District Court
for the District of Nebraska and
die U.S. Court of Appeals for die
Eighth Circuit ruled the law was
unconstitutional because it placed
^ It is simply a practice ... that has
no place in a civilized society.”
\
Don Stenberg
Nebraska attorney general
an “undue burden” on a woman’s
right to choose to have an abor
tion.
However, in a similar case, the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit disagreed, ruling
that bans on partial-birth abor
tions in Illinois and Wisconsin
were constitutional.
In a press conference Monday
at the National Association of
Attorneys General’s headquarters
near Capitol Hill, Stenberg
defended the law.
Stenbeig, a Republican candi
date for U.S. Senate, based his
arguments on two main points. He
said the law bans only one “bar
baric” procedure that is never
medically necessary. Because
other abortion procedures are
Please see ABORTION on 8
Case tests
mode of
execution
■ NU Law College plays host to
Scottsbluff case that questions the
consitutionality of electrocution.
By Michelle Starr
Staff uniter
A hearing to determine the constitutionality
of death by electrocution began Monday at the
University of Nebraska Law College.
A Lincoln attorney, Jerry Soucie, who rep
resents a 26-year-old Scottsbluff man convict
ed of killing and dismembering his 3-year-old
son in March 1999, is arguing that the death
penalty is cruel and unusual.
The convicted man, Raymond Mata Jr., will
be sentenced to either life in prison or death by
electrocution.
Scotts Bluff County District Court Judge
Robert Hippe is hearing the arguments at the
law college this week. Hippe is one of three
judges who will be on the sentencing panel in
Scottsbluff.
Nebraska is one of two states that uses the
electric chair for capital punishment.
According to court documents, Soucie and
his co-counsel, Jim Mawbray, are using record
ed botched electrocutions, such as the
Nebraska executions of Robert Williams in
1983, Harold Otey in 1994 and John Joubert in
1996, to argue the method is unconstitutional.
Soucie also used examples from other
states, such as an Alabama case where sparks
and flames came from the electrode on an
inmate’s leg and a Florida case where 6-inch
flames came from an inmate’s head piece.
But Deputy Scotts Bluff County Attorney
Doug Warner said the state provided evidence
that showed death by electrocution was quick
and not painful.
Charles Hohenstein, retired assistant war
den of the Nebraska State Penitentiary, said
according to protocol, executions have five
intervals and are done properly.
The first is an eight-second, high-voltage
charge of2,400 volts, followed fey a 22-second,
low-voltage charge of480 volts, then high, then
low, then high, then off, Hohenstein said.
The first eight-second charge should be
enough to kill the inmate, render the inmate
Please see EXECUTION on 6
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