Support Mounts for Death Penalty Repeal in New Hampshire

A recent editorial in

Seacoast Online

called for the repeal of the death penalty in New Hampshire following the Thursday launch of Rep. Renny Cushing’s campaign to end the policy.

 

Cushing, whose father was murdered in 1988, was joined in Concord by Catholic and Episcopal bishops, law enforcement representatives, and crime-victim advocates.

 


Seacoast Online

said:

In our view, the death penalty is simply not justice. While we understand and respect the arguments in favor of putting to death those convicted of the worst capital crimes, we’re convinced by the evidence that the damage capital punishment inflicts on society far outweighs the good.

 

We agree with Judge Walter Murphy, who served in 2009 as chairman of the Commission to Study the Death Penalty in New Hampshire.

 

“There is no assurance that the death penalty does what its advocates claim is its purpose; nor is there any reason to believe it is necessary for public safety,” Murphy wrote in the commission’s final report. “The alternative, that is, life without the possibility of parole, offers the same protection without the attendant risks of mistakes and without the vast expense both monetary and otherwise.”

 

… The justice system is not infallible. The death penalty removes the possibility of correcting miscarriages of justice.

The editorial notes that DNA testing has shown many people on death row were wrongly convicted. To date, eighteen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row.

 

Read the

full editorial

.

 

More about

the innocent and the death penalty

.