Nebraska Supreme Court affirms denial of Aubrey Trail’s death sentence appeal

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court’s decision to deny Aubrey Trail’s appeal of his death penalty.

In an extensive ruling, the state’s high court agreed with the Saline County District Court’s 2024 decision on the grounds that Trail’s attorney filed the motion two months too late.

Trail was sentenced to death in 2021 for the killing and dismemberment of Sydney Loofe, who disappeared the night of Nov. 15, 2017.

SEE ALSO: Aubrey Trail admits to murdering victim before death sentence

According to the supreme court, a February 2024 motion challenging his conviction and death sentence missed the deadline in Nebraska law.

The high court affirmed his conviction in 2022 after the automatic appeal that was triggered by his sentence.

The law then allows a defendant one year after that to file another appeal, giving Trail a December 2023 deadline

Trail’s attorney argued that Trail was abandoned by his previous lawyer and spent around 100 days during that one-year period without legal representation.

But the supreme court said Trail was not abandoned by his counsel; instead, he abandoned his counsel.

According to court documents, Trail requested that his attorney step down.

Trail’s girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, is serving a life sentence for Loofe’s murder.

SEE ALSO: Nebraska Supreme Court upholds Bailey Boswell’s murder conviction

There is no word on if Trail’s legal team will file any more appeals, but most death row inmates rarely meet their fate.

Nebraska has not carried out an execution in more than seven years, when it killed Carey Dean Moore by lethal injection in 2018.

Since then, the state hasn’t been able to secure the drugs to perform another execution.