EDITORIALS: ​“Don’t expand capital punishment, abolish it”

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Concord Monitor advo­cat­ed against expand­ing New Hampshire’s death penal­ty law to include mul­ti­ple-mur­der offens­es, as some law­mak­ers have pro­posed. Instead, they say, ​“the death penal­ty should be elim­i­nat­ed, not expand­ed.” The edi­to­r­i­al cites prob­lems in the death penal­ty process, such as wrong­ful con­vic­tions, high costs, and its arbi­trari­ness, as rea­sons for abo­li­tion.

The Monitor also writes that the death penal­ty is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive, not­ing, ​“It does noth­ing to deter peo­ple from com­mit­ting mur­der, but it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sends the mes­sage that, under cir­cum­stances oth­er than war or defense of one­self or anoth­er, it is per­mis­si­ble to kill anoth­er human being.” The paper con­tin­ues, ​“Expanding the death penal­ty to apply to more offens­es will not reduce the mur­der rate. Making killing a cul­tur­al taboo so heinous that soci­ety does­n’t impose it on the worst of crim­i­nals, might.”

New Hampshire has not had an exe­cu­tion in almost 70 years.
(“Don’t expand cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, abol­ish it,” Concord Monitor, February 6, 2008). See Editorials.