N-«j" m DN Issues
■ 7 What does a college degree
mean, and how should it be used?
OPINION, PAGE 5
Near and Far
Wednesday, April 26,2000 daUyneb.com Vol 99, Issue 148
A&E, PAGE 9
Stenbera: Hiah court divided on ban
■ U.S. Supreme Court heard
arguments in the partial-birth
abortion case Tuesday.
By Brian Carbon
Staff writer
WASHINGTON - In a possible land
mark abortion case, the US. Supreme
Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on
the constitutionality oflsfebraska’s bam on
partial-birth abortions.
Attorneys clashed on whether
Nebraska Is law is a narrow ban on a grue
some and medically unnecessary abor
tion procedure, or a far-reaching law that
could prohibit more common procedures
and place an undue burden cm a woman’s
right to choose to have an abortion.
In Stenbergvs. Carhart, the first abor
tion case tiie Supreme Court has heard
since 1992, the court will rule on the con
stitutionality of Nebraska’s law, which
has been blocked from being enforced by
lower courts.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, expect
ed by the end of June, could affect laws in
30 states that have banned partial-birth
abortions.
Nebraska AttorneyGeneral Don
Stenberg defended the State’s law, saying
it bans only the procedure known med
ically as “intact dilation and extraction,”
or “D&X,” while leaving other abortion
options open to women.
Simon Heller, a lawyer for the Center
for Reproductive Law and Policy in New
York, represented Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the
Bellevue abortion doctor who challenged
the law.
Heller said the law would ban more
than just the D&X procedure and would
hamper the ability of women to undergo
die safest abortion procedure available in
some circumstances.
Stenberg, also a Republican candi
date for US. Senate, told die court that the
law bans only the D&X abortion method.
In that procedure, die doctor delivers die
fetus’s body up to the head into die birth
canal, then uses scissors to open a hole in
the fetus’ skull before inserting a suction
catheter and sucking the brains out of the
head.
Stenberg said the law would not ban
the more common “dilation and evacua
tion,” or “D&E” method, in which the
fetus is dismembered while still in the
womb.
Please see SUPREME on 3
Nebraska leaders scrutinize
state’s late-term, abortion law
By Michelle Starr and Jill
Zeman
Staff writer
With the arguments said and
done in Washington, D.C., on
Tuesday, Nebraska politicians,
pro-life and pro-choice advocates
spoke their minds on Nebraska’s
questioned late-term abortion
ban.
The case, Attorney General
Don Stenberg vs. Dr. LeRoy
Carhart, a Bellevue doctor who
performs partial-birth abortions,
is questioning a 1997 Nebraska
law that bans a procedure called
dilation and extraction.
Some say die ban on the pro
cedure puts in jeopardy a
woman’s constitutional rights of
not having an undue burden
placed upon them; others say the
procedure is gruesome and
unnecessary.
Sen. Chuck Hagel declared
his support of the state’s law and
said, as a U.S. senator, he has
Please see NEBRASKANS on 7
Catch of the Day
_ ' • Mike Warren/DN
AFTER A FOUL BALL landed on the track during practice, Tim Logan, a Javelin thrower for HU, looks for a child to throw It to.
The ball’s landing drew a crowd of children who screamed to Logan to give It away; Logan, however, decided to give It to secu
rity woiklng the gate at the baseball game.
Concerted effort brines Tutu to campus I
By Kimberly Sweet
Staff writer
It’s three months lata* than originally
planned, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu of
South Africa will finally be in Lincoln
today.
The 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner
will be the lecturer for the final E.N.
Thompson Forum on World Issues of die
school year. His speech will begin at 3:30
p.m. at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
A snowstorm prevented 'ftitu from
speaking on the original scheduled date,
Jan. 25.
But organizers who helped secure
Tutu’s appearance say die three-month wait
is nothing compared with the years they
have spent trying to bring Ibtu to campus.
Event organizers say they have long
seen the relevance of the anti-apartheid
leader’s message to the E.N. Thompson
Forum, which aims to educate citizens on
worldwide issues.
“We’ve wanted for a long time to see
Tutu come,” said Stephen Hilliard, profes
sor of English and coordinator of the
Humanities Research Program. “He’s been
on our list for seven or eight years, but we
were never able to arrange it”
Robert Hitchcock, associate professor
of anthropology, said Tutu was excited to
finally arrange a visit to the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. The university’s stance
on various human rights issues has drawn
Tbtuto campus. , ~
The University of Nebraska was one of
the first to speak out against apartheid, and
Nebraska was one of the first states to
oppose apartheid, Hitchcock said.
“Ith been a very activist campus on the
” He s been on our
list for seven or
eight years, but we
were never able to
arrange it.”
Stephen Hilliard
Humanities Research Program coordinator
issue of apartheid,” he said.
Ibtu is known for being instrumental in
apartheid’s end in South Africa. He was die
first black archbishop of the Anglican
church.
Please see TUTU on 7
Arguments
in execution
case finished
V •
Decision may come in week
By Michelle Starr
Staff writer
Final arguments were heard Tuesday in a hearing to
determine if electrocution is a constitutional method of exe
cution.
At the hearing, which began Monday at the University of
Nebraska Law College, Lincoln attorneys Jerry Soucie and
Jim Mawbray argued that the Department of Correctional
Services doesn’t follow all specifications of Nebraska law in
carrying out the death penalty using electrocution.
This deviation results in an unusual amount of pain and
suffering for the inmates, the attorneys said.
Death by electrocution is therefore unconstitutional,
Soucie said.
But Deputy Scotts Bluff County Attorney Doug Warner
said the amount of time the inmate is in pain does not con
stitute torture.
“There are few ways to die that don’t involve pain,”
Warner said.
The motion for a hearing was filed after a 26-year-old
Scottsbluff man, whom Soucie represents, was convicted of
killing and dismembering his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son in
March 1999.
Raymond Mata Jr., convicted of the crime, will either be
sentenced to life in prison or given the death sentence.
Scotts Bluff County District Court Judge Robert Hippe,
who is one of three judges on a sentencing panel for Mata in
Scottsbluff, heard the arguments.
Soucie and Mawbray used Nebraska executions of
Robert Williams in 1983, Harold Otey in 1994 and John
Joubert in 1996 to argue the method is unconstitutional
because of bums on the inmates’ legs and heads where the
conductors were. Examples from cases in other states such
as Florida and Alabama were also used.
Testimony was heard Tuesday from Jay Patrick Reilly, an
electrical engineer from Maryland, who said Monday’s testi
mony from Charles Hohenstein, retired assistant warden of
the Nebraska State Penitentiary, showed a lack of under
standing and knowledge of electricity.
Protocol for the Department of Correctional Services is
based cm a 150-pound person, but of the many variables for
conductivity - which is imperative to incapacitate the brain
- is a person’s physical characteristics, he said.
A tall, skinny person with a small muscle mass would
provide more resistance to conductivity than someone with
more muscle mass, Reilly said.
If too little of a current is used, or there is too much
resistance to the current, not enough electricity will pass
through die brain. If too sfrpng a current is used, the heart
will not fibrillate, or stop. It will defibrillate, or start again,
Please see EXECUTION on 7