Julie Nelson

While we all decry crimes against children, please oppose this as well as all other bills to reinstate the death penalty in New Hampshire. My father, Pastor George A. Nelson, was shot and killed by a mentally ill young man in Manteca, CA back in 1979. Some people argue that the death penalty gives some sort of comfort and closure to the families of those murdered. Compounding the pain of his death with another death, though, would have brought my family the opposite of comfort! There is no reason for the state to add to the violence. In addition, the death penalty is also an expensive burden on taxpayers, there is no evidence that it deters violent crime, and there is no going back if it turns out that the courts made a mistake. There is no good reason to reinstate the death penalty, and many good reasons to oppose it. Take it from me, whose own father was murdered.