Death penalty legislatively abolished in New Hampshire by bipartisan supermajorities

Progress is pos­si­ble, even in dark and dan­ger­ous times.

That’s the mes­sage the New Hamp­shire Leg­is­la­ture sent today when a bipar­ti­san Sen­ate major­i­ty vot­ed to per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in the Gran­ite State, over­rid­ing a veto by Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor John Sununu.

“The Sen­ate vote to final­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in New Hamp­shire is a remark­able moment in our state’s his­to­ry,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ren­ny Cush­ing of Hamp­ton, the spon­sor of the repeal bill and a mur­der vic­tim. (Cush­ing’s father was mur­dered in 1988.)

Last week, the New Hamp­shire State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed to over­turn Sununu’s veto by the nar­row­est of mar­gins, 247–123. (In most states, it takes a two-thirds vote to over­ride a guber­na­to­r­i­al veto, as with a pres­i­den­tial veto.)

The Sen­ate vot­ed 21–8 to join the House in over­rid­ing the veto.

An unhap­py Sununu con­demned the vote, as did sev­er­al fig­ures in New Hamp­shire law enforce­ment. They’re all the wrong side of history.

New Hamp­shire leg­is­la­tors have advanced the val­ues that this coun­try was found­ed upon with their actions today. All Amer­i­cans should be proud.

There is no evi­dence that the death penal­ty deters crime. And a death sen­tence is not jus­tice. The tak­ing of life in response to the tak­ing of life sim­ply per­pet­u­ates an ugly cycle of vio­lence, and leaves open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that an inno­cent per­son could be sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed for a crime they did not commit.

New Hamp­shire has just one indi­vid­ual on death row. The state has not exe­cut­ed any­one in eighty years. Yet Sununu lob­bied to keep the death penal­ty in place any­way. With bipar­ti­san super­ma­jori­ties arrayed against his posi­tion, he became mere­ly a spec­ta­tor to the ulti­mate out­come instead of hav­ing the final say.

As a con­se­quence, New Hamp­shire has become the twen­ty-first state to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Accord­ing to the Death Penal­ty Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter, states with­out the death penal­ty now include, in addi­tion to the Gran­ite State, Alas­ka, Hawaii, New Mex­i­co, North Dako­ta, Min­neso­ta, Iowa, Illi­nois, Wis­con­sin, Michi­gan, West Vir­ginia, Mary­land, Delaware, New Jer­sey, New York, Ver­mont, Mass­a­chu­setts, Con­necti­cut, Rhode Island, Maine, and… Washington.

Ore­gon, Col­orado, Penn­syl­va­nia and Cal­i­for­nia have imposed mora­to­ri­ums on exe­cu­tions. The oth­er half of states still have the death penalty.

The death penal­ty was struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in here last Octo­ber by the State Supreme Court, with all death sen­tences con­vert­ed to life impris­on­ment. Wash­ing­ton’s death penal­ty statute remains on the books, how­ev­er, because for­mer Speak­er Frank Chopp inex­plic­a­bly blocked the House from con­sid­er­ing a bipar­ti­san bill passed by the Sen­ate that would per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish it.

Last year, NPI found 69% of like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sur­veyed sup­port­ed life in prison alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty, includ­ing a major­i­ty of Democ­rats, a major­i­ty of Repub­li­cans, and a major­i­ty of independents.

Frank Chopp is no longer the Speak­er of Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, hav­ing resigned ear­li­er this month. House Democ­rats will choose a new Speak­er-des­ig­nate on July 31st. NPI’s Gael Tar­leton is a can­di­date for the posi­tion; the oth­ers are Mon­i­ca Jura­do Stonier, June Robin­son, and Lau­rie Jink­ins. Both Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tar­leton and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jink­ins par­tic­i­pat­ed in NPI’s July 12th, 2018 press con­fer­ence pre­sent­ing our death penal­ty poll findings.

NPI stands ready to work with the new Speak­er to ensure the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives votes on repeal­ing the death penal­ty in 2020, cement­ing Wash­ing­ton’s place among the states that have tak­en a stand for human rights by get­ting rid of their death chambers.