Nebraska executed its first prisoner in 21 years today. The state killed Carey Dean Moore with a four-drug lethal injection cocktail that included fentanyl – the first time that drug has ever been used in an execution in the U.S.
The 60-year-old Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of two Omaha cab drivers, Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland.
The Nebraska legislature abolished the death penalty in 2015, but Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, pushed to put it on the ballot in 2016, and voters approved it with 60 percent of the vote.
Nebraska’s last execution was in 1997, by electric chair.