Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash — now a conservative senator in the Nebraska legislature but then a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — decided to go with some friends to the state penitentiary. Willie Otey, convicted of first-degree murder, was set to be executed at midnight, and people were gathering in the parking lot outside. Coash can still remember the scene: the live band, the grilling meat, the revelers popping cans of beer and chanting, “Fry him!” “You wouldn’t have been...
