DataNebraska  

*These factors track the process--i.e. the effort and obstacles--for obtaining data from individual states under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and appeals process. These factors do not measure the quality of the data; only the process of attempting to obtain the data.

• 6

  days to respond to our FOIA request.

Nebraska took 6 days to respond to our FOIA request with a link to their interactive dashboards. Nebraska’s statutes, however, are not specific for felony murder. Although we attempted to use publicly available web portals to identify individuals incarcerated under felony murder, as in most other states, Nebraska does not have a statute specifically codifying felony murder, which would make it easier to identify and isolate felony murder conviction data. Instead, as in most other states, felony murder is defined within its other murder statute and the publicly available conviction and sentence information did not distinguish felony murder from other murder convictions.

We appealed the FOIA results and asked for more specific data related to felony murder, but Nevada did not send over anything specific to felony murder.

In Nebraska, felony murder is defined in the first degree murder statute (Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-303).

Prosecutors can charge and convict any person of murder without having to prove that they intended to cause another person’s death. Prosecutors must only prove that a person committed or attempted to commit another specified felony and that a death occurred. Prosecutors can prove first degree murder even when the death was caused by a third non-party (i.e. neither the person nor their accomplice).

A conviction for felony murder in Nebraska carries a possible sentence of life or death, but in Nebraska, a sentence of “life” is really a sentence of life without the possibility of parole because life sentences are ineligible for parole. See Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-105 (Parole cannot be granted until such time as the sentence is commuted to a definite term of years by the Board of Pardons).