Listen To This Story
Mike Heavican retires at the end of October after 18 years on the bench. Nebraska Public Media’s Dale Johnson sat down with the 77-year-old Schuyler native to talk about the death penalty and other topics he's dealt with over the years.
Dale Johnson: Is this what you dreamed you would be doing growing up in Schuyler Nebraska?
Mike Heavican: Wow. No, not in my not in my wildest imagination. I had some thought that I might try to be a lawyer, but would never have dreamt that I would become the Chief Justice.
Johnson: And yet your dream job, as you've called it, puts you in a position, at times, to deal with life and death issues. And I'd like to bring up the death penalty issue. Back in February 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 6-1 the electric chair is cruel and unusual, and you were that single dissenting opinion. And I know that was 16 years ago, but recall for me, please, your reasoning of that dissent.
Heavican: It seemed to me that the death penalty issue belongs in the legislative arena and also with the people, and they have voted on it since then. Of course, the method of execution was really the issue at that point in time.
Johnson: Where do you see capital punishment going In Nebraska?
Heavican: I think capital punishment is less and less popular. But again, there was an initiative not too many years ago, and the people voted for it to reinstate it after the legislature had abolished it. So I think it'll be around for a while in Nebraska.
Johnson: With the public demonstrating distrust for the legislative branch and the administrative branch, does the public trust the judicial branch?
Heavican: I think studies show that the judicial branch always comes out a little bit better than the two more political branches. And I think in Nebraska, we have a lot of reasons to be proud of our judiciary. When I was in the United States Attorney's Office and when I was the United States Attorney, it was not unusual for my counterparts on the east coast, in Chicago and sometimes in the deep south to prosecute members of the State Judiciary for corruption. We have nothing like that in Nebraska. It's just not part of the core of the way we govern in Nebraska, and has never, never been part of our judiciary.
Johnson: In looking at your accomplishments, chief justice, it's a long list and an impressive list, and if I could just go through some of them, expanding cameras in the courtroom. That gets our attention, webcasting court proceedings, taking supreme court hearings on the road to high schools, emphasizing how children are treated in the court system. Something out of your control came to my attention from the Brennan Center for Justice, the lack of racial or ethnic representation on the High Court in a state with a population of at least 20% people of color. Your thoughts about representation on the bench?
Heavican: One of my predecessors, Chief Justice (Norman) Krivosha, once said we have absolutely no control over who we work with, who's part of the who the justices are. I think that we have a lot more diversity in the system than we once did in our trial courts and so forth, and I think it's only a matter of time before you will see more diversity on the Supreme Court bench.
Johnson: You mentioned Supreme Court Justice Krivosha, he was the last one to deliver a state of judiciary before you picked it up. Is that correct? Why did you feel that opportunity was important to resume?
Heavican: Almost every state in the United States has a state of the judiciary address. When I became the Chief Justice, I heard of a lot of gnashing of teeth and wailing about we’re the forgotten branch of justice or of government and nobody understands or appreciates what we do. So it seemed to me that there were some ways we could work on that. We will always be the lesser known branch of government, I think, but we deserve our 15 minutes of fame. And part of that is, I think it's important that the people of the state of Nebraska and the legislature have some understanding of what happens through the year in the judiciary, what's important to us, and the kinds of things that we need to function well, and the kinds of problems that we run into.
Johnson: In what turns out was your final judicial address this past January, you brought up the October cyber attack of the Kansas court system where everything from social security numbers to payment card information was hacked. How vulnerable is Nebraska's court system in such threats?
Heavican: We've gone out of our way to get everybody to, because our computer system reaches out all of the trial court judges around the state of Nebraska and into, for example, the clerks of the district court who are part of county government and our clerks of the county court, which are part of our branch, and obviously we have interaction with lawyers and so forth. So there's a lot of moving parts there, but we've done the very best we can.
Johnson: To someone who's practiced law for their entire life, even when you are no longer practicing or no longer in your in your position, does it still come up?
Heavican: Absolutely. I definitely will be watching to see how things are going, particularly immediately after leaving. There will be a number of things that I worked on that weren't completed and so forth. So I will be watching to see a number of things that are still pending.
Johnson: Retiring Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Heavican.
Heavican: Well thank you very much.