NewsChannel 4’s Kristin Johnson spent the day at the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska.  She visited the Supreme Court as they were hearing the appeal of Erick Vela’s death sentence for the 2002 Norfolk, Nebraska US Bank killings.

The first thing that I noticed about the Nebraska Supreme Court room is the size.  It’s smaller than the courtrooms in the Federal Courthouse in Sioux City. 

Unlike a district court hearing the attorneys have a limited time to speak.  Erick Vela’s council, Jeff Pickens, says it took him a year to prepare his brief, but only 20 minutes to present it. For that reason the attorney must pick out specific arguments from the written briefs to present orally to the seven Supreme Court Justices.

Much of it is legal jargon that you and I wouldn’t understand and if we could understand it, it might just put us to sleep…as I saw one Justice nodding off during a different hearing.

Much like the U.S. Supreme Court, the State’s high court can take a very long time to hand down a decision.  Pickens says it could take a few weeks but maybe over a year.

The justices won’t return to the courtroom with their decision, instead they will put it in writing. 

It’s amazing how much one can learn spending just a day at the State Capitol.

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