LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - The Nebraska Supreme Court ordered two killers removed from death row Friday and said three-judge panels can no longer impose the death penalty without a unanimous vote.

The courted ordered C. Michael Anderson and Peter Hochstein sentenced to life in prison. The pair have been on death row for 23 years after being sentenced to die on a 2-1 vote for the 1975 contract killing of an Omaha real estate developer.

"We conclude that the impositions of sentences of death based on non-unanimous determinations of three-judge sentencing panels ... were error," wrote Judge Lindsey Miller-Lerman.

The ruling comes amid a national debate over the death penalty and follows the release of 10 death-row inmates based on new tests of DNA evidence. Two U.S. Supreme Court justices have hinted the court might re-enter the debate over whether the death penalty is being applied fairly.

The Justice Department is also reviewing information about racial and geographic disparities in the federal death penalty system.

Nebraska law allows death sentences to be imposed by a trial judge or a panel of three judges, including the trial judge. The trial judge has the option of asking that a panel be appointed.

After an earlier appeal, Anderson, 49, and Hochstein, 46, were resentenced to die in the electric chair by a three-judge panel.

Attorneys for the two men argued that the panel's split decision indicated doubt in their sentence and a flaw in the system of three-judge sentencing panels in capital cases.

The high court agreed.

"Given the legislatively recognized 'enormity and finality' of the death penalty, and the legislative directive to apply 'scrupulous standards of fairness' in imposing sentences of death, we decline to endorse sentences of death based on speculation," Miller-Lerman said.

The panel that sentenced Anderson and Hochstein unanimously agreed that Ronald Abboud's killing was a murder for hire and sufficient to justify a death sentence. However, it was divided on whether a lack of criminal history was a strong mitigating factor in weighing the death penalty. The panel also was divided on whether the death sentences were excessive compared to penalties imposed in similar cases.

Assistant Attorney General J. Kirk Brown said the decision was curious.

"The Supreme Court has concluded that a single judge, regardless of what motivates them, can veto a death penalty," he said. "It leaves us in the interesting position where one district judge can sentence someone to death, but two can't."

Defense attorney Alan Stoler said he was relieved by the decision.

"We argued strenuously all along that the statute must be strictly construed - that death is a different and ultimate penalty and, as such, a unanimous decision must be reached," he said.

Earlier this week, a state study said death penalty cases are handled differently in urban and rural areas of Nebraska, and prosecutors are more likely to seek a death sentence against those who kill wealthy or prominent people.

Hochstein and Anderson are the only two men on Nebraska's death row who were put there by a sentencing panel's split decision. Seven others are awaiting the death penalty in Nebraska. Three men have been put to death since the state resumed executions in 1994 after a 35-year hiatus.

Colorado, the only other state to use sentencing panels, requires unanimous decisions.