By NATE JENKINS

Associated Press Writer

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Nebraska is not reconsidering its planned switch from electrocution to a three-drug lethal injection cocktail to execute inmates, despite Ohio's decision to start using a single-drug injection following a botched execution attempt, officials said Monday.

After a public hearing Monday on the proposed three-drug protocol, some attorneys said Ohio's announcement Friday that it would switch to a one-drug system should give Nebraska officials pause. Nebraska has been without a means of carrying out the death penalty since early last year, when the state Supreme Court deemed the electric chair a cruel and unusual punishment.

"The fact Ohio has moved to one drug should send a message," said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who studies the death penalty. "If they do have (a death penalty) the one-drug is a lot safer and more humane and easier to implement."

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said there's no evidence that using one drug would be significantly safer and cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection including the three-drug system. The one-drug method, Chief Justice John Roberts said, "has problems of its own and has never been tried by a single state."

Dawn-Renee Smith, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, which crafted the lethal injection proposal, said the department was not considering a single-drug system.

The three-drug protocol ensures death, and even if using a single drug was found to be slightly safer, "that isn't enough" to make the three-drug system unconstitutional, Bruning said.

"The Supreme Court made it clear - it's not enough to be a slightly safer alternative. Any alternative must substantially reduce," the risks of an inmate suffering unduly.

Bruning said he planned to talk to Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray about the botched Sept. 15 execution of Romell Broom so that Nebraska corrections officers could learn from what happened. Executioners couldn't find a suitable vein on Broom, so the execution was halted.

Broom, who was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 14-year old girl in 1984, complained in an affidavit following the execution attempt that his executioners painfully hit muscle and bone during as many as 18 attempts to reach a vein.

Ohio would be the first state to use a single-drug injection to execute inmates. Officials said they plan to put the new method in place by Nov. 30., although the switch is almost certain to get tied up in appeals.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, said he wasn't aware of any states that are considering a one-drug system because of the development in Ohio.

Nebraska officials will consider written and verbal testimony on the proposed three-drug protocol and decide whether parts of the proposal should be changed. The protocol then must be approved by Bruning and Gov. Dave Heineman, who supports lethal injection.

Corrections Director Robert Houston has estimated it might be spring or summer before protocol is in place.

Eleven people are on Nebraska's death row, but experts have said they don't expect an execution in the state for several years. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997.

Attorneys for death-row inmates plan on filing lawsuits challenging a three-drug protocol once it gets final approval in Nebraska, said Amy Miller, litigation director of the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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