Eleven convicted killers sit on Nebraska's death row. After six hours of legislative debate, there's still no legal means of executing them.

In February of 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared the electric chair unconstitutional. Now state senators are debating a bill proposed by Norfolk Sen. Mike Flood that would change Nebraska's method of execution to lethal injection.

Sen. Flood brought the bill on behalf of his district, where five people were killed in the botched 2002 Norfolk U.S. Bank robbery. Three men sit on death row for the murders and Flood said he is seeking a legal method of execution to carry out their death sentences.

"You just can't watch the kinds of things that happened inside that bank and say the death penalty isn't appropriate," said Flood.

Flood also stood to draw attention away from the capital punishment discussion, pointing out the real issue is only to change Nebraska's legal method of execution from the banned electric chair to lethal injection.

"I think it's only appropriate that if we have a death penalty there be a constitutionally viable method," Flood said in a 10/11 exclusive interview the day before debate began.

Several pro-death penalty senators pointed to a 2008 Kentucky case where the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lethal injection as a legal method of execution. Flood said he crafted his bill after the Kentucky lethal injection law that requires a set execution procedure, as well as a clause to protect health care officials who participate in executions from legal actions against them.

However, opponents of Floods' bill, specifically Lincoln Senator Danielle Nantkes, argued this bill doesn't coincide with the Kentucky legislation, which states, no "doctor" can participate in execution.

Nantkes also pointed to high costs as a deterrent to changing the method.

"LB 36, if and when it's adopted by this legislature, represents nothing more than years and yeas and rounds and rounds of painful litigation for our state, for these families, and for these victims," said Nantkes.

During debate, a small but determined minority emerged.

"The death penalty is inherently arbitrary, it is inherently capricious, it is inherently discriminatory," said Omaha Sen. Brenda Council.

Council offered an amendment to abolish the death penalty. Her predecessor, former Senator Ernie Chambers tried the same action several times unsuccessfully over his career, including a 2008 attempt that fell just one vote short of success.

Several senators gave impassioned pleas for the death penalty, reminding the body of past vicious murders, including one where the convicted killer boiled his victim.

Valentine Sen. Deb Fischer described the crimes of all 11 death row inmates. By the time she finished, Fischer was nearly in tears as she asked for death penalty support.

Council argued passionately against the death penalty as an unfair method, pointing to a 2008 murder, where a white man shot a black Omaha woman with a high powered sniper rifle while she waited in a restaurant drive through line. The man was not given the death penalty.

"I have to look at their grief knowing this guy will be back on the streets, potentially in ten and a half years, because ya know what, a 12 member all-white jury decided he shouldn't be convicted of first degree murder for killing a black girl," said Fischer.

The legislature will reconvene Tuesday morning to vote on both Council's amendment and the lethal injection bill.

In a pre-debate Associated Press poll, a majority of senators said they would vote to support the death penalty.

Click on the provided link to watch Senators debate the death penalty live Tuesday, May 19.