Lawmakers in New Hampshire on Thursday failed to override Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's veto of a bill that would have abolished the death penalty but managed to do so with one offering support to the beleaguered biomass industry.
The state Senate Thursday voted 14-10 to overturn the governor's veto on the death penalty, 2 votes shy of the 16 needed to override a gubernatorial veto. In the case of bills supporting the biomass industry and net metering, the Senate overrode the vetoes. Environmentalists claimed victory in the override of a veto of a bill that provides help to the state's biomass industry but fell short on net metering in the House.
New Hampshire's death penalty applies in only 7 scenarios: the killing of an on-duty law enforcement officer or judge, murder for hire, murder during a rape, certain drug offenses or home invasion and murder by someone already serving a life sentence without parole.
The state hasn't executed anyone since 1939, and the repeal bill would not have applied retroactively to Michael Addison, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs and is the state's only death row inmate.
Death penalty opponents argued that courts might have interpreted it differently, however. Others argued that imposing the death penalty doesn't give victims the closure that repeal advocates assume it would.
2 Democrats from Manchester, Sens. Kevin Cavanaugh and Lou D'Allesandro, voted with 8 Republicans to uphold the governor's veto. The other 8 Democrats in the chamber joined 6 Republicans in supporting a veto override.
"It's a very narrow death penalty. It has been used in this state 1 time, in 1939. One time," argued D'Allesandro, in support of upholding Sununu's veto.
But Republican State Sen. Bob Guida, in urging an override of the veto, claimed that "the death penalty is not a deterrent."
"An eye for an eye is not what this country is about," he said.
Source: Associated Press, September 14, 2018
Amnesty International USA Will Continue Its Fight for New Hampshire to Abolish the Death Penalty
Reacting to news that the New Hampshire state legislature has failed to override the Governor's veto, which would have ended the death penalty in New Hampshire once and for all, Kristina Roth, Senior Program Officer at Amnesty International USA stated:
"The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. By vetoing this bill, which had broad bipartisan support, the Governor defends a practice that serves no legitimate public interest, neither deterring crime nor improving public safety.
"Amnesty International and New Hampshire citizens who believe in the illegitimacy of the death penalty will continue their fight to abolish it in their home state."
Source: Amnesty International, September 14, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
