Deborah Donnelly

I oppose this bill for these reasons: 1) The New Hampshire legislature repealed the death penalty in 2019 by a bi-partisan, two-thirds majority. There has been no upsurge in homicide since then. In fact, New Hampshire has the lowest homicide rate in the nation! 2) The criminal justice system is fallible. The death penalty carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person. Since 1973, at least 200 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated. 3) The death penalty violates the moral codes held by most major religious groups, including my Episcopal faith. The New Hampshire Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester were among the groups that worked for years to repeal the state’s death penalty. 4) The death penalty is opposed by numerous people with experience in law enforcement, corrections, and criminal justice who understand that it does not protect public safety any more than imprisonment. 5) Because of the complexity of trials in which a death penalty is possible, administration of the death penalty is far more expensive than alternatives, including life imprisonment. It is a misuse of public resources.