In advance of a New Hampshire Senate vote expect­ed on April 17, the Boston Globe pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing on their neigh­bor­ing state’s leg­is­la­tors to sup­port repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the bipar­ti­san sup­port for abo­li­tion in the New Hampshire House, and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s pledge to sign the repeal bill if it pass­es the Senate. Among their rea­sons for endors­ing the mea­sure, the Globe said, ​“Death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are expen­sive, ver­dicts often reflect racial bias, and there’s lit­tle evi­dence that exe­cu­tions actu­al­ly deter vio­lent crime.” Moreover, the edi­to­r­i­al con­tin­ued, “[A] state with a lib­er­tar­i­an her­itage like New Hampshire’s should regard with deep sus­pi­cion a pun­ish­ment that can only make sense if the gov­ern­ment has the right sus­pect 100 per­cent of the time.” In response to the argu­ment that pros­e­cu­tors need the death penal­ty as a bar­gain­ing tool, the edi­tors said, “[T]hat’s among the weak­est of rea­sons to keep the death penal­ty, because it could serve to coerce an inno­cent or less cul­pa­ble defen­dant into tak­ing a plea bar­gain just to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death.” Read the editorial below.

New Hampshire should abolish death penalty

NEW HAMPSHIRE stands on the verge of repeal­ing its death penal­ty, and needs just a few more sen­a­tors to come out against the increas­ing­ly inde­fen­si­ble prac­tice before a vote planned for Thursday. Momentum in Concord has been grow­ing since the state House of Representatives passed a repeal mea­sure in March in a bipar­ti­san vote, and Governor Maggie Hassan has said she will sign the leg­is­la­tion should it make it out of the Senate. But enough sen­a­tors — includ­ing Democrat Jeff Woodburn and Republicans Bob Odell, Russell Prescott, Andy Sanborn, and Jeanie Forrester — remain unde­cid­ed to leave the measure’s fate in doubt.

By now, the unde­cid­ed leg­is­la­tors have heard all the argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are expen­sive, ver­dicts often reflect racial bias, and there’s lit­tle evi­dence that exe­cu­tions actu­al­ly deter vio­lent crime. Social atti­tudes have shift­ed, with more view­ing the pun­ish­ment as inhu­mane. And the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing a wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed defen­dant looms over the whole debate; a state with a lib­er­tar­i­an her­itage like New Hampshire’s should regard with deep sus­pi­cion a pun­ish­ment that can only make sense if the gov­ern­ment has the right sus­pect 100 per­cent of the time.

Despite the objec­tions, some New Hampshire law­mak­ers appear sym­pa­thet­ic to the argu­ment that pros­e­cu­tors need the death penal­ty in their tool­box so they’ll have more lever­age to nego­ti­ate tougher plea bar­gains. Facing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death if they’re con­vict­ed at tri­al, the the­o­ry goes, crim­i­nals will be more like­ly to accept life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

Yet that’s among the weak­est of rea­sons to keep the death penal­ty, because it could serve to coerce an inno­cent or less cul­pa­ble defen­dant into tak­ing a plea bar­gain just to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death.

Because New Hampshire has not put a con­vict to death since 1939, past debates on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Concord have tak­en on an over­ly philo­soph­i­cal feel. The tenor of the debate this time is slight­ly dif­fer­ent: New Hampshire now has a death row pris­on­er, Michael Addison, who was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a Manchester police offi­cer in 2006. The cur­rent repeal pro­pos­al wouldn’t void Addison’s sen­tence and will only apply to future con­vic­tions. Still, his case should serve as a reminder that law­mak­ers can’t approach the death penal­ty like it’s a legal­is­tic bar­gain­ing strat­e­gy divorced from the real­i­ty of exe­cu­tions. The death penal­ty hasn’t been shown to be an effec­tive deter­rent to crime and dis­torts the nor­mal process­es of jus­tice. New Hampshire should get rid of it.

(Editorial, ​“New Hampshire should abol­ish death penal­ty,” Boston Globe, April 16, 2014). See Editorials and Recent Legislation.

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