New Hampshire Governor Again Vetoes Bill to Repeal State’s Death Penalty

For the sec­ond time in as many years, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (pic­tured, left) has vetoed a bill to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. Sununu’s action on May 3, 2019 sets the stage for an antic­i­pat­ed attempt lat­er in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion to over­ride the Governor’s veto. A two-thirds vote in each house is required to override.

The New Hampshire leg­is­la­ture also vot­ed to repeal the death penal­ty dur­ing its 2018 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, but fell short of the two-thirds major­i­ty nec­es­sary to over­ride Gov. Sununu’s veto. The leg­is­la­ture again approved a repeal bill this ses­sion, this time with veto-proof majori­ties in both hous­es. In February, the New Hampshire House of Representatives con­duct­ed a pub­lic hear­ing at which more than 100 wit­ness­es — includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of law enforce­ment, fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide vic­tims, death-row exonerees, and faith lead­ers — tes­ti­fied. The wit­ness­es voiced over­whelm­ing sup­port for the bill. On March 7, the House vot­ed 279 – 88 in favor of repeal. After hold­ing an addi­tion­al pub­lic hear­ing, the State Senate vot­ed 17 – 6 on April 11 to pass the repeal bill.

As he did in 2018, Governor Sununu made law enforce­ment the visu­al focus of his veto mes­sage. Flanked by uni­formed police offi­cers In a pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter named for slain Officer Michael Briggs, Sununu called the repeal bill ​“an injus­tice not just to Officer Briggs and his fam­i­ly, but to law enforce­ment and oth­er vic­tims of vio­lent crime across the state.” Sununu said: ​“I can­not thank those stand­ing behind me enough. They put their lives on the line every sin­gle day. Every day they walk out that door and put their lives on the line. They don’t ask a whole lot, but they do ask for our support.”

A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of 31 years of FBI homi­cide data has shown that the death penal­ty makes no mea­sur­able con­tri­bu­tion to pub­lic safe­ty or to pro­tect­ing police offi­cers. DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham sum­ma­rized the find­ings in tes­ti­mo­ny before the New Hampshire House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety dur­ing the February leg­isla­tive hear­ings. The FBI mur­der data, Dunham said, ​“shows that offi­cers are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly mur­dered in states that have the death penal­ty, as com­pared to states that don’t.” Four of the five safest states for police offi­cers had no death penal­ty at any time in the last three decades, and sev­en of the eight safest states for police offi­cers either nev­er had the death penal­ty or had recent­ly abol­ished it, he said. Overall, Dunham tes­ti­fied, “[t]he data … strong­ly sug­gests that hav­ing the death penal­ty has not made officers safer.”

The repeal bill was intro­duced by State Rep. Renny Cushing (D – Rockingham; pic­tured, right), whose father and broth­er-in-law were mur­dered in unre­lat­ed inci­dents years apart. Cushing has described the death penal­ty as a ​“rit­u­al­ized killing” that does noth­ing to com­pen­sate for a victim’s family’s loss. State Sen. Ruth Ward (R – Stoddard), whose father was killed when she was 7 years old, also sup­port­ed the mea­sure. “[My father] nev­er saw us grow up,” she said. ​“My moth­er for­gave who­ev­er it was, and I will vote in favor of this bill.”

New Hampshire last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 1939. It has imposed one death sen­tence since rein­stat­ing the death penal­ty in 1991, sen­tenc­ing Michael Addison to death in 2008 for the mur­der of Officer Briggs. The bill would not affect Addison’s sen­tence, but death-penal­ty pro­po­nents argue that the courts would over­turn his sen­tence if the death penal­ty were to be repealed.

(Josh Rogers, Sununu Vetoes Bill to Repeal N.H.‘s Death Penalty, New Hampshire Public Radio, May 3, 2019; Ray Brewer, Gov. Sununu vetoes death penal­ty repeal bill, WMUR-TV, May 3, 2019; Gov. Sununu Vetoes Death Penalty Repeal Bill, Override Likely To Come This Fall, Associated Press, May 3, 2019.) See Recent Legislative Activity, Victims, and Deterrence.