The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area The Nebraska legislature voted to abolish the death penalty after overriding the Governor’s veto on 27  May 2015.85 The law will come into effect in September 2015.86 There are ten inmates currently on death row in Nebraska.87 In Maryland, the death sentences for the last four death row inmates were commuted to life in prison by the governor in December 2014.88 The Pennsylvania governor suspended the death penalty in February 2015, until the state advisory commission on capital punishment established by the Pennsylvania state Senate in 2011 can produce its recommendations.89 The state district attorney filed a lawsuit with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over the moratorium on the death penalty.90 The moratorium imposed by a federal judge in Ohio was first extended until January 2015,91 and then, later that month, the governor postponed all executions scheduled for 2015.92 The laws abolishing capital punishment in New Mexico and Connecticut are not retroactive; therefore, inmates remained on death row in these states during the reporting period – two in New Mexico and 11 in Connecticut.93 An annual survey conducted by the Gallup polling service in May 2015, with a random sample of 1,024 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, found that 60 per cent of Americans indicated that the death penalty is morally acceptable.94 A Pew Research Center poll, with a national sample of 1,500 adults from across the United States, reported that 56 per cent favored the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 38 per cent opposed it, and that 63 per cent 85  “Nebraska Bans Death Penalty, Defying a Veto”, New York Times, 27 May 2015, <http://www.nytimes. com/2015/05/28/us/nebraska-abolishes-death-penalty.html>. 86  “Out of Spite: The Governor of Nebraska’s Threat to Execute Prisoners”, The Atlantic, 5 June 2015, <http://www. theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/a-governor-threatens-to-execute-prisoners-out-of-spite/394949/>. 87  Nebraska Death Row Inmates, Nebraska Department of Corrections website, <http://www.corrections.nebraska. gov/pdf/Death%20Row.pdf>. 88  “Maryland commutes last four death row sentences to life”, BBC, 31 December 2014, <http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-us-canada-30636325>. 89  “Pennsylvania’s governor suspends the death penalty”, The Washington Post, 13 February 2015, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/13/pennsylvania-suspends-the-death-penalty/>. 90  “Pennsylvania Governor’s Death Penalty Moratorium Under Fire”, The Huffington Post, 5 March 2015, <http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/05/pennsylvania-death-penalty-supreme-court_n_6804722.html>. 91  “Ohio’s death-penalty moratorium extended until next January”, Cleveland.com, 11 August 2014, <http://www. cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/08/ohios_execution_moratorium_ext.html>. 92  “Ohio delays all 2015 executions, amid scrutiny of lethal injection drugs”, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 January 2015, <http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0131/Ohio-delays-all-2015-executions-amid-scrutiny-of-lethal-injection-drugs>. 93  “Connecticut Death Penalty Law Is Unconstitutional, Court Rules”, New York Times, 13 August 2015, <http:// www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/nyregion/connecticut-death-penalty-law-is-unconstitutional-court-rules.html?mabReward=CTM&_r=0>. 94  “Most Americans Continue to Say Death Penalty Morally OK”, Gallup, 4 June 2015, <http://www.gallup.com/ poll/183503/americans-continue-say-death-penalty-morally.aspx>. 23