Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a bill to repeal New Hampshire’s death penalty for a second time Friday, though lawmakers are likely to override his decision in the fall.
Sununu, a Republican, vetoed the bill in Manchester, the state’s largest city, surrounded by police officers and other law enforcement officials at a community center named in honor of Officer Michael Briggs, who was shot to death in the line of duty in 2006.
“This is common sense,” Sununu said. “New Hampshire has always exercised great prudence, great responsibility in its application of the death penalty. I firmly see, along with many folks across the state, this bill is an injustice not just to Officer Briggs and his family, but to law enforcement and other victims of violent crime across the state.”
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 Briggs and is the state’s only inmate on death row. But death penalty supporters argued courts might interpret it differently, however, giving Addison a chance at life in prison.
Londonderry Police Capt. Patrick Cheetham spoke of a recent 15-hour standoff at a Manchester hotel that ended in three deaths. One man was killed in a confrontation with law enforcement outside the hotel, while two others were found dead inside. All were wanted on drug charges.
“The violence that we see in New Hampshire, against not only New Hampshire’s police officers, but against its citizens is not going away,” said Cheetham, past president of the New Hampshire Police Association. “While we live in one of the safest states in the country, the opioid and fentanyl crisis continues to plague not only this city but the entire state. Now is not the right time to repeal the death penalty, and I stand here today supporting Gov. Sununu.”
Briggs’ widow, Laura, attended Friday’s ceremony and spoke at a public hearing on the bill in April, in part because her son is now working in law enforcement. Other relatives of murder victims, however, testified in favor of the bill, as did retired prosecutors, clergy and former death row inmates who were exonerated and released.
Laura and her son, Grafton police officer Mitchell Briggs, stood behind Sununu as he wielded a red marker and vetoed the legislation. The governor then wrote a message beneath his signature, “God Bless Officer Briggs And His Family.”
“You can’t imagine the courage and strength it takes to keep reliving this, having to relive it through a legislative process, of all things,” Sununu said of the Briggs family. “I hope this sends a clear message to the state how important this is.”
Sununu, a Republican, first vetoed a death penalty repeal bill last June, and the Senate lacked the votes to override it in September.
But momentum grew after Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in November, and an identical bill passed both chambers this year with more than the necessary two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
“We’ll keep fighting for it,” Sununu said. “(The vote) was pretty overwhelming, to be honest. Politics didn’t really come into play. I think it was folks not really understanding what this means to law enforcement, what this means to families, and what justice and accountability are about.”
Sununu told officers Friday to press lawmakers to sustain his veto.
“What the first vote was is not necessarily what the second vote will be,” he said.
Thirty 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 states have abolished or overturned it.
The debate around the death penalty is not drawn along party lines, with several Republicans supporting the repeal of capital punishment in the state.
Hannah Cox, national manager of the group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, issued a statement Friday morning saying that Sununu’s decision to veto the bill is “out of step with the many New Hampshire Republican state lawmakers who voted to end the death penalty.”
“As conservatives, we have learned that capital punishment does nothing to make us safer and only wastes limited taxpayer dollars that could be better spent resolving cold cases and fighting crime,” Cox’s statement read.
Sununu, meanwhile, reaffirmed his position that the death penalty serves as a deterrent of violent crimes.
“People in the state understand that this is a tool, and when used justly and used with prudence, as New Hampshire does, it is appropriate,” he said.
(Monitor staff writer Nick Stoico contributed to this report.)