NEW VOICES: Former New Hampshire Justices Support Death Penalty Repeal

Two for­mer jus­tices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court recent­ly voiced their sup­port for repeal­ing the death penal­ty. In an op-ed, Joseph Nadeau (l.) and John Broderick (r.) empha­sized the death penal­ty’s lack of deter­rent effect, say­ing, ​“New Hampshire has not exe­cut­ed any­one for three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry. Yet, it reg­is­tered the sec­ond low­est mur­der rate in the nation every year of this cen­tu­ry.” Murder rates were high­er in heavy-use death penal­ty states, they not­ed. The for­mer jus­tices said the deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty is often ​“ran­dom” and ​“eas­i­ly influ­enced by pub­lic opin­ion, polit­i­cal pres­sure and media atten­tion.” They jus­tices said the sen­tence of life with­out parole is an appro­pri­ate alter­na­tive, pro­tect­ing soci­ety and pun­ish­ing the offend­er. They con­clud­ed: ​“Abolishing the death penal­ty will not com­pro­mise pub­lic safe­ty, but it may replace rage with rea­son, ret­ri­bu­tion with self-respect, and enrich the char­ac­ter of our peo­ple as a whole.” Read the op-ed below.

Death penalty solves nothing, former N.H. Supreme Court justices write

By Joe Nadeau and John Broderick

New Hampshire has not exe­cut­ed any­one for three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry. Yet, it reg­is­tered the sec­ond low­est mur­der rate in the nation every year of this cen­tu­ry. Our state is reg­u­lar­ly ranked one of the safest in which to live; and by report­ed crime sta­tis­tics was the safest in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The time has come to embrace New Hampshire his­to­ry and abol­ish the death penalty.

There is no rela­tion­ship between the death penal­ty and pro­tec­tion from mur­der­ers. Louisiana, a state with 28 exe­cu­tions since 1975, has had the high­est mur­der rate in the nation every year since 1996. Mississippi, with 21 exe­cu­tions, was either sec­ond or third dur­ing that peri­od. The oth­er states with the low­est mur­der rates — Hawaii, Vermont, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Iowa — have no death penalty.

We do not doubt that those who sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment do so from a sense of out­rage at the hor­ror of mur­der, and in the belief that exe­cu­tions serve a nec­es­sary pur­pose. We share that out­rage, but for us the ques­tion must be asked: What pur­pose is served by executions?

Can the pur­pose be deter­rence, when analy­sis and expe­ri­ence show that those who kill do not con­sid­er the sen­tence before they act, or do not expect to be caught, or both?

Can the pur­pose of exe­cu­tions be pro­tec­tion from the killers, when life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole pro­vides that pro­tec­tion, and pub­lished reports show that no state has ever paroled a per­son from such a sentence?

Can the pur­pose be to pro­vide con­sis­ten­cy in pros­e­cu­tions, when the deci­sion whether to seek the death penal­ty can be so ran­dom and so eas­i­ly influ­enced by pub­lic opin­ion, polit­i­cal pres­sure and media attention?

Can the pur­pose be to achieve fair­ness, when expe­ri­ence shows that the deci­sion whether to impose death is com­plete­ly depen­dent upon the com­po­si­tion of a par­tic­u­lar jury and the emo­tions of indi­vid­ual jurors in each case, and when death is imposed more upon minori­ties and the poor than on the estab­lished and well-to-do?

Can the pur­pose be to save tax dol­lars, when it has been well estab­lished that to seek and car­ry out the death penal­ty costs more than to pros­e­cute and imprison a per­son for life? And even if an exe­cu­tion might cost less, would­n’t killing mere­ly to save mon­ey be unthinkable?

If, as some argue, the pur­pose is to hon­or law enforce­ment, does­n’t hon­or come from per­son­al pride and earned respect, rather than from state-sanctioned killings?

If the pur­pose is to pro­vide jus­tice for vic­tims, isn’t jus­tice served by sen­si­tiv­i­ty to their plight, by swift appre­hen­sion and vig­or­ous pros­e­cu­tion of mur­der­ers, by adher­ence to the con­sti­tu­tion, and by fair and impartial trials?

Ultimately, isn’t the death penal­ty more about ret­ri­bu­tion than any­thing else? And even if ret­ri­bu­tion sat­is­fies per­son­al pas­sion for some cit­i­zens, should it jus­ti­fy gov­ern­ment exe­cu­tions in the name of all citizens?

Most of us will nev­er feel the loss expe­ri­enced by vic­tims of mur­der. We may nev­er know whether the desire for revenge could lead us to sup­port death for a per­son who mur­dered some­one we love.

Nevertheless, nei­ther of these fail­ings makes abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty any less com­pelling. We believe there is sim­ply no valid rea­son for a civ­i­lized soci­ety to con­done the sys­tem­at­ic killing of human beings.

Arguments that there are laws to reduce the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tion, or laws to kill in a ​“humane” way, are not per­sua­sive. In fact, know­ing that inno­cent peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed, and that DNA evi­dence has freed oth­ers before exe­cu­tion, is enough for us to abhor the death penal­ty, irre­spec­tive of any argu­ments to sup­port it. With the most respect­ed judi­cial sys­tem in the world, how can we will­ing­ly embrace a sen­tence that can­not be reversed after it is imposed?

Clearly, mur­der­ers must be pun­ished and removed from soci­ety. Life in prison with­out parole does both. It is unnerv­ing mere­ly to con­tem­plate the iso­la­tion of life in an 8‑by-10-foot cell, the con­stant mind-numb­ing sound of steel on steel, the monot­o­ny of a reg­i­ment­ed dai­ly rou­tine, the demor­al­iz­ing absence of ordi­nary free­doms, the grad­ual dwin­dling of vis­i­tors until there are none, and the even­tu­al loss of hope until a life with­out the sim­ple joys we all take for grant­ed ends with a lone­ly death in prison. That is punishment.

Eliminating state exe­cu­tions says noth­ing about crim­i­nals who kill, but it says a great deal about a soci­ety that does not. For us, the prin­ci­ple for any killing is the same: The inten­tion­al tak­ing of human life, except in self-defense or in the defense of oth­ers, is not accept­able no mat­ter who does the killing. Abolishing the death penal­ty will not com­pro­mise pub­lic safe­ty, but it may replace rage with rea­son, ret­ri­bu­tion with self-respect, and enrich the char­ac­ter of our peo­ple as a whole.

Joseph Nadeau is an inter­na­tion­al con­sul­tant and for­mer N.H. Supreme Court Justice. John Broderick is UNH Law School Dean and for­mer N.H. Supreme Court Chief Justice.

(J. Nadeau and J. Broderick, ​“Death penal­ty solves noth­ing, for­mer N.H. Supreme Court jus­tices write,” Seacoast Online, March 25, 2014). A bill to repeal the death penal­ty over­whelm­ing passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives on March 12. Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee will occur on April 3. See New Voices and Recent Legislation.