NH's Failure

From USA Today:

“New Hampshire repeals death penalty, joining 20 other states”

New Hampshire, which hasn't executed anyone in 80 years and has only one inmate on death row, became the latest state to abolish the death penalty when the state Senate voted to override the governor's veto on Thursday. The Senate vote came a week after the 400-member House voted by the narrowest possible margin to override Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's veto of a bill to repeal capital punishment. "Now it's up to us to stop this practice that is archaic, costly, discriminatory and final," said Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Brookline. With New Hampshire's action, 29 states allow capital punishment, but in four of them, governors have issued moratoriums on the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Twenty-one states have abolished or overturned it. New Hampshire's death penalty applies in only seven 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 apply retroactively to Michael Addison, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs and is the state's only inmate on death row. But death penalty supporters argued that courts will interpret it differently, giving Addison a chance at life in prison. "If you think you're passing this today and Mr. Addison is still going to remain on death row, you are confused," said Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry. "Mr. Addison's sentence will be converted to life in prison." Carson argued that New Hampshire has a narrowly drawn law and a careful, deliberative process to ensure innocent people are not executed. "This is not Louisiana of the 1920s where Old Sparky was put on a flatbed truck and driven from prison to prison and people were executed. We are not those people," she said. "That doesn't happen here in New Hampshire." The Senate vote, 16-8, was exactly the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto. Twelve Democrats and four Republicans supported ending the death penalty, while six Republicans and two Democrats voted to keep it. The latter included Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, who represents the district in which Officer Briggs was killed. He urged his colleagues to remember law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day. "I can't abandon these people," he said. "These people are there for us. They're there for us, and I believe strongly we have to support them." Sununu, who vetoed the repeal bill surrounded by officers at a community center named for Briggs, said Thursday he was incredibly disappointed in the vote. "I have consistently stood with law enforcement, families of crime victims, and advocates for justice in opposing a repeal of the death penalty because it is the right thing to do," he said in a statement. But Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, a former FBI agent, said while he greatly respects law enforcement, the death penalty is at odds with his pro-life principles. He called execution a "ghastly" process and urged his colleagues to "move our civilization" past it. "I think we're better than that," he said. "I choose to move our state forward to remove the death penalty." Former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill in 2000. Another Democrat, former Gov. John Lynch, signed a bill in 2011 expanding the death penalty to cover home invasions in response to a machete and knife attack that killed a woman and maimed her daughter in Mont Vernon. Alabama on Thursday plans to execute the second man in two weeks by lethal injection— its third execution in 2019.

^ This is a sad day for New Hampshire, it’s people and the United States. The Death Penalty should be legal for murder and terrorism. Now if those things happen in NH only terrorists can still get the Death Penalty (because terrorism is a Federal crime and the Federal Government still has the Death Penalty.) The Federal Government has had to come in and do what many other states (like MA, NY, etc.) has not been able to do: bring justice to the victims and their families of terrorist attacks. Sadly, there is no justice for the victims and their families of other murders. NH is now added to that pathetic list. A Country (or State) is supposed to do what is right for its citizens and there is now one more state that, because of ignorant lawmakers, no longer does that. I can only hope that the lawmakers who support the Death Penalty repeal in New Hampshire (and lawmakers in other US States and in other Countries around the world) do not one-day find themselves the victim of murder or the family member of a murder victim because if they do then they only have themselves to blame for the fact that no matter what verdict is given in the case true justice will never be possible since the Death Penalty is not even an option. I do not believe that the Death Penalty should be used for every crime (only murder and terrorism) and that even in those two circumstances there needs to be protocols in place to make sure the punishment is not abused (as with any punishment.) Many people around the world like to pretend we live in a world of “lemon drops and moon beams” but reality is that we do not. There are evil people in the world who want to kill other people. The Death Penalty is one of the ways to keep society civil and less murders from happening. I also still do not understand those people who are pro-abortion (the killing of babies) and are anti-Death Penalty (the killing of murderers and terrorists.)  I believe abortion should be legal the same way I believe the Death Penalty should be legal. You can not be for one and against the other on moral grounds without being a hypocrite and losing any moral standing you may have once had. ^

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/05/30/new-hampshire-repeals-death-penalty-state-senate-veto-override/1286039001/