Death penalty repeal officially on hold until 2016 election

After a review by election officials, more than enough valid signatures were gathered last summer on a petition drive to overturn the Nebraska Legislature’s repeal of the death penalty. Campaign leaders will “work to ensure that Nebraska voters have their voice heard on this important criminal justice issue”, spokesman Chris Peterson said.

Campaign filings showed Ricketts, a Republican who supports capital punishment, donated $200,000 to Nebraskans for the Death Penalty after lawmakers overrode his veto of the repeal.

Just four months after the death penalty was banned in Nebraska, a pro-death penalty group there is one step closer to having it reinstated.

Secretary of State John Gale announced Friday that county election authorities had completed their verification of the almost 169,000 petition signatures submitted by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty.

At least 56,942 signatures were required to add the question to the 2016 ballot – a threshold that was easily met. It also means that the law which ended the death penalty has been suspended, meaning that the death penalty is once again the law of the land in Nebraska. Signatures from at least 10 percent of voters, or 113,883, were required to keep the repeal from going into effect.

Enough signatures were collected to stay the effective date of LB268 until voters decide the issue.

In addition, signatures of more than five percent of registered voters were collected in 85 of the state’s 93 counties.

The death penalty hasn’t been used in Nebraska since three men – Harold Otey, John Joubert and Robert Williams – were executed between 1994 and 1997.

He says we need to protect those that protect us, and the death penalty will do that. There is also the question of how such an execution could take place, as Nebraska, like Georgia, Oklahoma, and other states, has struggled to get the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections.