Editor’s note: This article was co-signed by 16 Nashua-area legislators listed below.

A repeal of the death penalty in New Hampshire is long overdue. Nearly 140 years ago then-Gov. William Badger beseeched the New Hampshire Legislature to rid this state of the scourge of capital punishment. Efforts to do so in the House and Senate were unsuccessful then. More recently, during the legislative session of 2000, the repeal of the state’s death penalty passed the House and Senate, but was then vetoed by the governor.

We are optimistic that, in 2014, the legislative branch and the executive branch will at last converge and bring an end to the capacity of the state of New Hampshire to engage in “state-sanctioned killing.”

Here are just a few of our reasons for supporting House Bill 1170, an act to repeal the state’s death penalty:

• No adjudicated criminal in New Hampshire has been executed since 1939 – that by hanging.

• Since 1973, more than 140 women and men who were previously on “death row” in various prisons throughout America have been found to be “not guilty” of the crimes for which they were wrongfully convicted.

• During that same time frame, nearly two dozen more have been executed for crimes it was subsequently proven that they did not commit.

• New Hampshire has sought the death penalty in just five cases over the past 70 years, with only one defendant having received the death sentence.

• Costs associated with prosecuting and defending the state’s one death row inmate have already exceeded $5 million. Meanwhile, if that individual loses all of his appeals, the state will need to build a “death chamber,” at an additional cost estimated to be at least $1.7 million.

• Meanwhile there are more than 100 “cold case” homicide cases that have gone unsolved with inadequate fiscal and personnel resources to pursue their resolution.

• Across the United States, racial minorities and those who were unable to afford competent legal counsel have disproportionately been given the death penalty when compared to sentences for similar crimes for higher-income white defendants.

• Families of homicide victims have explained time and time again that the death penalty has offered them only the repeated re-opening of painful scars, not the help in healing or resolution that was promised.

• There is no quantifiable research available that demonstrates that there is any deterrent value to a state having the death penalty.

• New Hampshire is the only state in New England with a death penalty law.

As elected Representatives to the New Hampshire House representing Nashua-area voters, we endorse the repeal of the death penalty, HB 1170, and urge our citizens to support this important initiative. Additional information can be found at:www.nodeathpenaltyNH.org.

The signatories: Reps. Jan Schmidt, Sylvia Gale, Paul Hackel, Suzanne Vail, Donald LeBrun, Pam Brown, Linda Gathright, David Murotake, Latha Mangipudi, Marty Jack, Shannon Chandley, Ruth Heden, Brenda Grady, Mary Ann Knowles, Melanie Levesque and David Woodbury.