State Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Hillsborough, right, is congratulated following a vote on the death penalty at the State House in Concord, N.H., Thursday, May 30, 2019. New Hampshire, which hasn't executed anyone in 80 years and has only one inmate on death row, on Thursday became the latest state to abolish the death penalty when the state Senate voted to override the governor's veto. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

CONCORD – “Archaic, costly, discriminatory and final,” are the words New Hampshire Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Nashua, used to describe the death penalty.

Thursday, Levesque and 15 other state senators voted to override Gov. Chris Sununu’s May 3 veto of House Bill 455, which outlaws New Hampshire’s death penalty. The 16-8 vote narrowly met the two-thirds margin required to override a veto.

The House last week voted 247-123 to overturn Sununu’s action.

“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. I am incredibly disappointed that the Senate chose to override my veto,” Sununu said regarding the Thursday Senate vote.

The legislation changes the penalty for capital murder to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Senate President Donna Soucy, D-Manchester, was pleased with the outcome of Thursday’s vote, which puts to rest an issue New Hampshire legislators have grappled with for many years.

“I commend the advocates who have worked tirelessly on this issue and extend my gratitude to Rep. Renny Cushing for his decades of work on this issue in honor of his father and his brother-in-law,” Soucy said.

Cushing, D-Hampton, lost both his father and brother-in-law to murder. Nevertheless, has continued to be a longtime proponent for abolishing the death penalty, campaigning for repeal since 1998.

Cushing called Thursday’s Senate vote “a remarkable moment in our state’s history.”

“I know firsthand that the pain and trauma from losing a loved one to violent crime will never dissipate,” Cushing said. “Today’s vote will ensure that this cycle of pain, which only creates more and more victims in its wake, will no longer be perpetuated by our state government. Abolishing capital punishment ensures that our state will never again eternalize the force of violence and will instead lead with powerful humanity.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Martha Hennessey, D-Hanover, said, “I commend the Legislature for voting to end capital punishment in our New Hampshire, a sentence that while infrequently used in our state has proven to be ineffective in reducing violent crime and an inefficient use of our limited criminal justice dollars.”

The state’s last execution occurred 80 years ago, in 1939, when Howard Long was killed by hanging.

One man sat on New Hampshire’s death row prior to the Thursday vote: inmate is Michael Addison, who was sentenced to death for killing Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006.

As written, the legislation does not change the sentence imposed on Briggs, although Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, is not so sure this will stand up in court.

“If you think you’re passing this today and Mr. Addison is still going to remain on death row, you are confused. Mr. Addison’s sentence will be converted to life in prison,” Carson asserted.

Carson argued that New Hampshire’s death penalty law was careful and deliberative 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.”

Barbara Keshen, chair of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said members of her organization are grateful to the bipartisan group of senators who cast votes to end capital punishment.

“Like the majority of their House colleagues, they agreed that capital punishment is inhumane, unfair, error prone and costly,” Keshen said.

Thursday’s vote also propelled New England to becoming the first full region in the U.S. to abolish capital punishment.

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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