New Hampshire

“Being the sur­vivor of a homi­cide vic­tim has a pain for which there aren’t any words,” says New Hampshire Representative Renny Cushing (pic­tured), in the lat­est episode of the Death Penalty Information Center pod­cast, Discussions with DPIC. But “[f]illing anoth­er cof­fin doesn’t do any­thing to bring our loved ones back, it just widens the cir­cle of pain. There’s a big dif­fer­ence between jus­tice and vengeance,” he says.

Overriding a veto by Governor Chris Sununu, the New Hampshire leg­is­la­ture has repealed the state’s death-penal­ty statute. With a 16 – 8 super­ma­jor­i­ty, the May 30, 2019 vote of the New Hampshire Senate equaled the two-thirds required to over­ride a guber­na­to­r­i­al veto. One week ear­li­er, the state House had vot­ed to over­ride with a 247 – 123 super­ma­jor­i­ty. The over­ride vote made New Hampshire the 21^st state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the ninth to do so in the last 15 years. Half of all U.S. states, includ­ing every north­east­ern state, now either have…

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.

In a vote death-penal­ty oppo­nents praised as ​“his­toric,” a veto-proof super­ma­jor­i­ty of the New Hampshire leg­is­la­ture gave final approval to a bill that would repeal the state’s death penal­ty statute. By a vote of 17 – 6, the sen­a­tors vot­ed on April 11, 2019 to end cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in the Granite State, exceed­ing the two-thirds major­i­ty nec­es­sary to over­ride an antic­i­pat­ed veto by Governor Chris Sununu. In March, the state House of Representatives passed the same abo­li­tion bill, HB 455, by a veto-proof 279 – 88 super­ma­jor­i­ty. For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the bill…

By an over­whelm­ing 279 – 88 mar­gin, a veto-proof major­i­ty of the New Hampshire House of Representatives vot­ed on March 7, 2019 to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. Demonstrating strong bipar­ti­san sup­port that gar­nered the back­ing of 56 more leg­is­la­tors than an iden­ti­cal repeal bill received in April 2018, the vote end­ed spec­u­la­tion as to how the recon­sti­tut­ed cham­ber would respond to repeal. 93 of the 400 rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the state house who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vote in 2018 did not seek reelec­tion, and more than one-third of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives had never…

Bills to repeal and replace the death penal­ty with non-cap­i­tal pun­ish­ments have gained new trac­tion across the United States in 2019 as a result of oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty among ide­o­log­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors. That move­ment – buoyed by fis­cal and pro-life con­ser­v­a­tives, con­ser­v­a­tive law-reform advo­cates, and the deep­en­ing involve­ment of the Catholic Church in death-penal­ty abo­li­tion – has led to unprece­dent­ed suc­cess­es in numer­ous hous­es of state leg­is­la­tures and moved repeal efforts clos­er to fruition in a num­ber of deeply Republican states. In 2019, con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors are lead­ing the…

Empowered by the results of the November 2018 mid-term elec­tions, leg­is­la­tures in at least four states are poised to renew efforts to repeal their states’ death-penal­ty statutes or dras­ti­cal­ly reduce the cir­cum­stances in which cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is avail­able. State leg­isla­tive and guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tions in Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Oregon have rede­fined the local polit­i­cal land­scape in 2019 in ways that death-penal­ty abo­li­tion­ists say have made those bills more like­ly to suc­ceed. Colorado and Oregon already have mora­to­ria on the death penal­ty, but leg­is­la­tors in both states are expect­ed to…

The results of the November 6, 2018 mid-term elec­tions reflect­ed America’s deeply divid­ed views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, as vot­ers elect­ed gov­er­nors who pledged not to resume exe­cu­tions in the three states with death-penal­ty mora­to­ri­ums, defeat­ed an incum­bent who tried to bring back cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in a non-death-penal­ty state (click on graph­ic to enlarge), and re-elect­ed gov­er­nors who had vetoed leg­is­la­tion abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in two oth­er states. Continuing a nation­al trend, vot­ers in Orange County, California oust­ed their scan­dal-plagued top pros­e­cu­tor, mark­ing the ninth time since 2015 that local voters…

New Hampshire Governor Christopher Sununu (pic­tured) has vetoed a bill that would have abol­ished the state’s death penal­ty. Surrounded by law enforce­ment offi­cers as he vetoed the bill on June 21, 2018, Sununu said, “[w]hile I very much respect the argu­ments made by pro­po­nents of this bill, I stand with crime vic­tims, mem­bers of the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty and advo­cates for jus­tice in oppos­ing it. New Hampshire does not take the death penal­ty light­ly and we only use it spar­ing­ly.” New Hampshire has only one per­son on death row, Michael…

The New Hampshire state leg­is­la­ture has vot­ed to repeal the state’s death penal­ty, but pro­po­nents of the bill cur­rent­ly lack the votes nec­es­sary to over­come a threat­ened guber­na­to­r­i­al veto. On April 26, the New Hampshire House of Representatives vot­ed 223 – 116 to pass Senate Bill 593, with 145 Democrats, 77 Republicans, and one Libertarian sup­port­ing repeal. The state sen­ate pre­vi­ous­ly approved the mea­sure 14 – 10 on March 15, with sup­port from eight Democrats and six Republicans.