New Hampshire, which hasn’t executed anyone in 80 years and has only one inmate on death row, on Thursday became the latest state to abolish the death penalty when the state Senate voted to override the governor’s veto.
The Senate vote came a week after the 400-member House voted by the narrowest possible margin to override Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of a bill to repeal capital punishment.
“Now it’s up to us to stop this practice that is archaic, costly, discriminatory and final,” said Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Brookline.
New Hampshire’s death penalty applies in only seven scenarios: the killing of an on-duty law enforcement officer or judge, murder for hire, murder during a rape, certain drug offenses, or home invasion and murder by someone already serving a life sentence without parole.
The state hasn’t executed anyone since 1939, and the repeal bill would not apply retroactively to Michael Addison, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs and is the state’s only inmate on death row. But death penalty supporters argued that courts will interpret it differently, giving Addison a chance at life in prison.
“If you think you’re passing this today and Mr. Addison is still going to remain on death row, you are confused,” said Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry. “Mr. Addison’s sentence will be converted to life in prison.”
Carson argued that New Hampshire has a narrowly drawn law and a careful, deliberative process to ensure innocent people are not executed.
“This is not Louisiana of the 1920s where Old Sparky was put on a flatbed truck and driven from prison to prison and people were executed. We are not those people,” she said. “That doesn’t happen here in New Hampshire.”
