More than half of New Hampshire residents think that the state is correct to classify the murder of a police officer as a crime punishable by death, according to the results of a new Monitor poll.

The poll, conducted by Research 2000 this week, found that 57 percent of those asked said that the death penalty is an appropriate maximum punishment for a police killing; 39 percent favored life in prison without the possibility of parole; 4 percent said they weren't sure. The poll surveyed 600 likely voters and had a 4 percent margin of error.

The poll comes as the state prosecutes two capital murder trials, the first of their kind in decades. John "Jay" Brooks of Derry has been accused of hiring men to help him kidnap and kill handyman Jack Reid, who he believed had stolen from him. Michael Addison of Manchester has been charged in the shooting death of Manchester police officer Michael Briggs.

Death penalty experts said that polls taken during the course of high profile death penalty prosecutions tend to show greater support for the death penalty than similar polls taken in the absence of such crimes. But Del Ali, who managed the poll for the Monitor, said the results place New Hampshire squarely at the center of U.S. public opinion on the death penalty.

"If I was to say, where is New Hampshire in the 50 states? Probably 25 or 26," Ali said in an interview. "They're right at the average of what you'd expect."

The numbers represent a shift since the last time public opinion on the death penalty was measured here. A 2000 poll performed by Northeastern University found 55 percent support for abolishing capital punishment in the state. That year, legislators passed a bill to do so, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

Nationally, support for the death penalty is measured several ways. A 2007 Gallup Poll found that 69 percent of Americans thought capital punishment was an appropriate punishment for murder. But pollsters who have asked people to compare the death penalty to life imprisonment have tended to find more even results. The same poll found that only 47 percent believed the death penalty is a better punishment than life imprisonment, while 48 percent chose a life sentence.

Friday, representatives of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a group that has fought for capital punishment's abolition, demonstrated outside the State House. Arnie Alpert, a group member and the New Hampshire Program Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee, said that the group hopes to inform legislators about legal, financial and moral problems with the death penalty.

"We think that obviously murder is a deplorable act, but we don't think that the state should be killing people," he said. "It's pretty clear on moral grounds."

The Monitor poll found that those with strong moral reservations about capital punishment may be less than 10 percent of the state's population. When people who said they preferred life imprisonment as the punishment for a police killing were asked if they'd be upset about the execution of the murderer, only 21 percent said yes.

Patty Cousens, a physician's assistant from Contoocook, said she'd count herself among that minority's ranks. She said that she opposes the death penalty across the board for philosophical reasons.

"It's not our choice to take someone's life," she said.

A larger minority appeared adamant that the death penalty should always be used in such cases. The poll found that 56 percent of death penalty proponents would be upset if someone convicted of murdering a police officer was sentenced to life in prison.

New Hampshire's capital murder statute strictly limits the crimes that can be punished by death. Under the statute, only the murder of a law enforcement officer, a murder for hire, and murders committed during kidnapping, drug crimes and rapes are eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors have also been sparing in their use of the charge, even in applicable cases. There have been a handful of capital murder charges in recent years, but they have ended in plea bargains that have not resulted in death sentences. The state's last execution occurred in the 1930s.

That approach seems appropriate to Lincoln Police Chief Ted Smith, the president of the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, which has participated in recent legislative debates about capital murder.

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