On November 6 the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a lengthy rul­ing uphold­ing the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Michael Addison, the state’s only death row inmate. The case is the first death-penal­ty appeal to be decid­ed by the Court in decades. The opin­ion said addi­tion­al brief­ing and oral argu­ment will be required before decid­ing ​“whether the sen­tence of death is exces­sive or dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the penal­ty imposed in sim­i­lar cas­es, con­sid­er­ing both the crime and the defen­dant.” Addison’s attor­ney, David Rothstein, said he dis­agreed with the rul­ing in this first round of review but, ​“We look for­ward to the oppor­tu­ni­ty to address the pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of the death sen­tence, and we will work [ ] dili­gent­ly on Mr. Addison’s behalf …” Addison was con­vict­ed of the 2006 mur­der of Michael Briggs, a Manchester police offi­cer. The New Hampshire leg­is­la­ture will con­sid­er a bill in 2014 to repeal the state’s death penal­ty for future offens­es. The Governor has said she would sign such a bill.

(New Hampshire v. Michael Addison, No. 2008 – 945, Nov. 6, 2013 (per curi­am); B. Leubsdorf, ​“N.H. Supreme Court affirms Michael Addison’s con­vic­tion, but no final deci­sion yet on death sen­tence,” Concord Monitor, Nov. 6, 2013). See Recent Legislation.

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