USA - Nebraska. Death penalty supporters turned in petitions today with enough signatures to suspend repeal and put death penalty before voters next year.

Death penalty supporters turned in petitions today to the Secretary of State's office to be verified. They say they have almost 167,000 signatures, enough to suspend repeal and put death penalty before voters next year. It appears voters in Nebraska will have the final say on the future of the death penalty. Supporters of the death penalty in Nebraska said they turned over 166,692 petition signatures Wednesday, which if verified, would suspend the repeal of capital punishment in the state until the issue goes before voters in November 2016. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty needed about 57,000 verified signatures -- 5 % of the state's registered voters -- to put the issue to a vote and about 114,000 -- 10 % of registered voters -- to stop the repeal from going into effect until after the 2016 vote takes place. Standing in front of boxes and boxes of signed petitions at a Wednesday news conference, state Sen. Mike Groene said Nebraskans -- the 2nd house -- will now have their say. State Treasurer Don Stenberg (a former attorney general), state Sen. Beau McCoy, and Vivian Tuttle, mother of Evonne Tuttle, who was killed in 2002 during a bank robbery in Norfolk, were at the news conference. The group began collecting signatures June 6, and paid circulators and volunteers spent every day since circulating petitions in all counties across the state. McCoy said over 1/2 of the 595 petition circulators were volunteers. In May, Nebraska made international headlines when the Legislature voted 30-19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of LB268, introduced by Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, which repealed the death penalty. The count included votes to repeal cast by senators who identify as conservative.