History not on the side of death penalty repeal in Nebraska
By Bill Kelly 
, Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media
May 13, 2013, 6:30 a.m. ·
Listen To This Story
Since becoming a state, Nebraska law not only specified which crimes deserved the death penalty, but the method of execution. State lawmakers, tired of botched hangings by county sheriffs and the ugly spectacle of public executions, opened the new century by modernizing its method. Lawmakers gave the warden of the state penitentiary sole responsibility for carrying out executions. Gottlieb Niegenfind was the first and news reports indicate everything went according to plan.
There was little talk in the Capitol of ending the death penalty. Some states, including neighbors Kansas and Colorado, repealed capital punishment but were debating the merits of returning to state-sponsored executions.
Bills introduced in Nebraska attempted to add, or at least specify, crimes worthy of a death sentence. Train robbery and kidnapping were both considered candidates for that list. (At the time the Legislature still consisted of two chambers, the House and Senate.)
1901 capital punishment law in Nebraska
Big money kidnappings became a cause for politicians after a sensational Nebraska case caught the attention of the entire nation. In 1900 the teenaged son of a wealthy Omaha couple was snatched off the street. His father quickly paid the $25,000 ransom and his son was returned.
State lawmakers responded by specifying kidnappers who demanded money would face a death sentence. (Kidnappings of those who didn’t have the means to pay a ransom were apparently considered lesser crimes.) Sen. Frank T. Ransom, the Omaha lawyer who wrote the bill, determined existing law was “regarded as lame and good authorities question whether… a long conviction would be possible.”
One unidentified “prominent member of the Senate” quoted in the McCook Tribune stated “to restore capital punishment for any crime less than murder in the first degree would be a distinct step backward.”
The law passed. These days kidnapping would be including among many ‘aggravating circumstances’ considered when the courts determined a sentence in a capital murder case.