A bill that could affect which prisoners get the death penalty could make its way to the floor of the Legislature next week.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee met Thursday afternoon and voted to amend LB377, the committee’s priority bill, to change the requirements for death sentences, according to committee members.

The committee decision came two days after Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers’ bill to repeal the death penalty failed on a vote of 24-25. Chambers is a member of the committee.

The language of the amendment had not yet been written Thursday afternoon and Chambers declined to comment.

“The issue is too serious, the stakes are too high,” he said.

But Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford, chair of the committee, said the committee agreed to draft an amendment that would remove prisoners convicted of first-degree murder from death penalty eligibility if they would not be a continuing danger in prison.

It would put the focus of the death penalty on public safety rather than retribution, he said.

Death sentences are determined by whether certain aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances. Aggravating circumstances include, for example, whether the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel or whether the offender was previously convicted of another murder or violent crime.

Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, also on the Judiciary Committee, said that with the amendment, if a jury would conclude that a person could not be safely imprisoned, he or she could be sentenced to death.

“It’s not a repeal (of the death penalty) in any respect,” he said.

Some of the senators who voted against repeal this week had misgivings about whether those prisoners could be safely imprisoned under a life sentence, Lathrop said.

He said he didn’t know how such an amendment might affect inmates already sentenced to death row. On Wednesday, the day after the repeal was defeated, the Supreme Court set a date of May 8 for the execution of inmate Carey Dean Moore.

During debate this week on the death penalty repeal, Lincoln Sen. Tony Fulton, who voted against repeal, had argued the death penalty needed to be retained for society’s self defense. If a first-degree murderer’s existence could elicit harm to society, especially in an age of terrorism, they should be put to death, he said.

If there was mandatory language that allowed the death penalty for those people, he said, “I would be obligated to vote for it.”

The bill could make it to the floor next week if Speaker Mike Flood would agree to put it on the Legislature’s agenda.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.