News Coverage of the New Hampshire Death Sentence
"Killer receives death sentence," is the Boston Globe report.
A New Hampshire jury handed down the state's first death sentence in 49 years, finding yesterday that a former Boston gang member with a history of violence should be executed for fatally shooting a police officer two years ago.
The verdict means that Michael Addison, 28, who was convicted of killing Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs, could be the first person executed in New Hampshire since 1939. Two men were sentenced to death in the state in 1959, but their lives were spared when the US Supreme Court struck down state death penalty laws in 1972.
"In New Hampshire, a Rare Death Sentence," if from the New York Times Lede Blog.
No one has been executed in New Hampshire since 1939, when Howard Long was hanged for molesting and fatally beating a 10-year-old boy. And the state’s last death sentence, in 1959, was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1972 for procedural reasons.
In fact, New Hampshire and Connecticut are the only two New England states that have the death penalty, and Connecticut has executed only one person since 1976.
“It is rarer in the whole Northeast than in the rest of the country,” said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/). “Only four people were executed in the Northeast since 1977, ”including three people in Pennsylvania and one in Connecticut.
“All of those four were people who waived their appeals and could have at least sustained themselves longer,” Mr. Dieter added.
By contrast, he said there were more than 900 executions in the South in the same period. Texas leads the nation in 2008 with 18 executions, and Virginia is second with 4.
Albert E. Scherr, a professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., offered an explanation for the regional disparity.
“As compared to southern states, it’s a somewhat more narrow statute in New Hampshire,” Professor Scherr said, explaining that there are only six categories of capital murder in the state — including murder-for-hire, murdering a police officer and murder in the course of kidnapping or sexual assault.
"Jury: Death for Addison," in the Manchester Union Leader. The Union Leader also has a chart, "A list of executions in New Hampshire history."
"In an instant, policy debate becomes real," in the Nashua Telegraph. One note: Renny Cushing is with Murder Victims Families for Human Rights.
Two years ago, a move to repeal the law failed in the House by only 12 votes.
The Legislature did decide to strike it off the books in 1999 but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, elected in November to the U.S. Senate, vetoed the measure.
Gov. John Lynch's own, renewed vow to veto would appear to politically doom repeal of this law.
Veteran observers agree a two-thirds majority needed to override that decision is unlikely to be found starting in the House with Republicans having picked up 17 seats in last month's elections.
This could be why there is indecision among death penalty opponents as to whether creating a commission that examines the costs of capital punishment versus life without the possibility of parole is a fruitful course while Addison's appeals are ongoing.
"I think this ruling by the jury makes it more relevant that we take a long-term look that a commission would as to whether it is good idea to have a death penalty law on the books," said Rep. Jim Splaine, D-Portsmouth, a longtime, legislative leader in the anti-capital punishment movement.
"I think it's a good thing to do now."
The commission's charge would include the cost to build and staff a death row and death chamber New Hampshire hasn't had in more than 30 years and to review studies that show it's cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than to carry out a death sentence.
Rep. Rene Cushing, D-Hampton, sees every reason to pursue repeal and believes that effort could gain momentum.
Cushing heads a Cambridge, Mass.-based center for the surviving families of homicide victims.
An off-duty police officer killed Cushing's father 20 years ago.
"Lynch would veto attempts to repeal death penalty," from AP via SeaCoastOnline.
"I think a just verdict has been rendered," Lynch said after a jury issued a death sentence to Michael Addison for murdering Manchester police Officer Michael Briggs two years ago.
Lynch said murdering a police officer "really strikes at the heart and fabric of our society" and the death penalty is appropriate "for such a heinous crime."
Death penalty foes have not decided whether to proceed with legislation to repeal or limit the death penalty law next year, said state Reps. Renny Cushing and Jim Splaine, both longtime opponents.
"I think some of us have been waiting to see the outcome of this trial," said Cushing, D-Hampton.
Cushing understands the emotional case for the death penalty. His father was shotgunned to death in the doorway of his Hampton home in 1988 by a neighbor who also was a town police officer. But rather than fight for capital punishment, Cushing stresses the need for mercy.
"Ultimately, I think the world has come to recognize the death penalty is a human rights violation," he said. "As a society, we're not better off when we have public employees conducting ritual killings of people."
Cushing is the founder of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, which represents victims across the country who oppose capital punishment. Cushing and Splaine said opponents will decide in the next couple of weeks whether to proceed with a bill. Splaine, Cushing and Rep. Steven Lindsey, D-Keene, have initiated repeal bills, but don't have to decide whether to go forward until next month. Cushing said opponents will get together soon to decide what to do.
Earlier coverage of the case is here.
Comments