OMAHA–(KFOR Oct. 20)–Defense attorneys for convicted murderer Nikko Jenkins have asked a Douglas County District Court judge to authorize money for experts to determine whether Jenkins is competent to remain on death row.
The attorneys argue there wasn’t a proper assessment of Jenkins’ intellect during his trial and conviction, before he was sentenced to death in May 2017 for shooting and killing four people in Omaha over a 10-day stretch in August 2013. The attorneys argue if Jenkins is found to be intellectually disabled, he would be immune from facing execution, based on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Virginia case that cites executing those with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment…