In the November 2016 general election, voters rejected the repeal measure, preserving capital punishment in the state.
[10] The state legislature subsequently approved a bill to change its method of execution to lethal injection, which was signed by governor Dave Heineman on May 28, 2009.
[12] A total of 38 individuals have been executed in Nebraska, including four after 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment in Gregg v. Georgia.
In August 2018, Carey Dean Moore was executed by lethal injection for the murders of cabdrivers Maynard Helgeland and Reuel Van Ness Jr. in 1979.
The petition's organizers submitted 120,479 valid signatures, more than 10% of the registered voters in the state, and thus sufficient to suspend the bill and preserve the death penalty until a public vote could be held.
[2] Death penalty opponents then filed a lawsuit to cancel the referendum, arguing that Ricketts was the "primary initiating force" for the measure, and should have been included on the list of sponsors required by state law.
[23] In the November 2016 general election, the death penalty repeal was rejected by a 61–39 margin, thereby retaining capital punishment in the state.