Commission to Abolish the Death Penalty hold public hearings in
Keene, Durham and Plymouth
In September the Commission will hold public hearings in three New Hampshire Communities. This is an important opportunity for you to express your views and to make a real impact on the future of the death penalty in our state. The hearing schedule is as follows:
- Plymouth: September 9, 2010
- Keene: September 16, 2010
- Durham: September 30, 2010
For further information contact: Barbara Keshen at (603) 225-3080 or Katherine Cooper at (603) 674-4885.
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NH Religious leaders urge
The commissioners of the
Death Penalty Study
Commission to Repeal the
Death Penalty.
The May hearing of the Commission to Study the Death Penalty was devoted to the question of whether the death penalty is consistent with evolving standards of societal decency.
David Lamare-Vincent, Executive Director of the Council of Churches presented a letter signed by 186 New Hampshire religious leaders calling on the state’s Death Penalty Study Commission to support repeal of capital punishment. The letter calls capital punishment “a gravely unjust method of protecting society.” And went on to say:
“We, the undersigned faith leaders, reflecting the rich diversity of faith traditions and spiritual practices observed in New Hampshire, stand together in expressing our opposition to New Hampshire’s death penalty,” the letter begins.
“As faith leaders, the public often seeks our guidance and direction on both spiritual and practical issues. As representatives of our respective faiths, we write to you today to ask you to support repeal of New Hampshire’s death penalty,” it continued.
The statement was signed by clergy from faith traditions including Roman Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Greet Orthodox, Quaker, and Baptist.
In addition to the letter leaders of many faith organizations, including Bishop Christian testified in person in favor of repeal. The May hearing was recorded. You can hear the entire testimony by going to the commission’s website:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/statstudcomm/committees/2009
The next meeting of the study commission will be held on Friday, June 18th starting at 9:00 AM in the Legislative Office Building; the commission will examine the process used by the Attorney General’s office to decide when to seek the death penalty.
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Death Penalty is impossible to fairly administer--State's grim job: proving the defendant soulless.
by Andru Volinsky (for the Concord Monitor)
After reading the monitor's exhortation to state senators to take up important but controversial issues ("Senate should have the courage to buck Lynch," editorial, March 31) it is difficult for me to remain silent about one of these issues: the death penalty.
New Hampshire juries, like most juries around the country, do not impose sentences in most criminal cases. Sentencing is generally left to judges, who gain experience over time in this difficult task and who are accustomed to dealing with the arguments of lawyers assigned to prosecute and defend. The death penalty is an exception to this practice. In death cases, the jury decides if the convicted defendant lives or dies. This makes death penalty cases different, and is one example of how these cases are impossible to administer fairly and without mistakes.
A death penalty trial is a battle for the jury's focus. The prosecutors, who must prove the elements of their case, necessarily draw the jury's focus to the often unspeakable act of murder and to the suffering of the victim. The defense tries to humanize the defendant or, failing this, tries to convince the jury that the cause of the defendant's inhumanity is a suffering to which the jury can relate. The defendant may have been abused as a child, for example, and the focus is then drawn by the defense to the abuser and the defendant's suffering.
Although the advocates may not realize they are doing it, the battle to gain control of the jury's focus is the primary struggle in the trial because both sides ultimately believe that a juror will not vote to kill someone who is viewed as being like that juror. The more the defense convinces the jury that it can relate to the defendant as a human being, the less likely the jurors will be to vote to kill him.
Death penalty cases are not about the heinous nature of the murder or so much about who was killed, otherwise all murderers would be in danger of being put to death. Death sentencing trials are about whether or not the jury sees the defendant as a fellow human being. And, here is one reason why I do not believe the state should conduct death penalty prosecutions. Death sentencing is ultimately about proving that the man on trial is bereft of a human soul and undeserving of being treated as a fellow human being. Proving that is fraught with difficulty. We mislead ourselves when we claim that the death penalty is a search for justice becase the concept of justice differs depending upon who defines it and upon whom justice is applied. The more dissimilar the defendant appears, the less justice ultimately requires before he is sentenced to death.
I understand that not everyone will share my feelings about the death penalty, and few have had the same experience I have had in this area. That is why the Monitor was right to implore our state senators to debate the tough issues sent to them by the house and tell us where their beliefs and experiences lead them.
(Andru Volinsky is a Concord lawyer who has represented defendants in death penalty prosecutions in Tennessee, Georgia and before the U.S. Supreme Court.)
Supporting the ACLU
This article was written by Glenn Greenwald of salon.com
As the New York Times reported, the ACLU this year, largely without warning, lost its single largest source of funding as a result of the financial crisis. The loss of that individual donor, who had been contributing $20 million per year, was a major blow to the organization, "punching a 25 percent hole in its annual operating budget and forcing cutbacks in operations." That loss came on top of substantial fundraising losses last year from the financial crisis and the Madoff fraud, which had already forced the group to lay-off numerous employees and cut back substantially on its activities. The lost donor made clear .... that he continues to support the ACLU's work emphatically but is simply now financially unable to continue his support.
It is not hyperbole to say that, over the past decade, there has been no organization more important to the United States, the Constitution, and basic political liberties than the ACLU. From the start of the Bush/Cheney assault on core civil liberties--when most organizations and individuals were petrified of opposing any efforts justified by "terrorism" --the ACLU was one of a small handful of groups which defied that climate of fear by vigorously and fearlessly opposing those erosions, Along with that same small handful of civil liberties and human rights groups, the ACLU since then has been at the center of virtually every fight against government incursions into basic rights. They defend core Constitutional principles regardless of party or ideology, and they continue to lead this fight even now that Bush is gone from office. As I detailed here, their crucial efforts extend far beyond litigating and lobbying, as they have often been forced to fulfill the investigative and oversight role intended for--but abdicted by--our national media and Congress. Indeed, most of what we know about the Bush torture regime and other lawbreaking schemes is the result not of newspapers or Congressional investigations but the ACLU.
I think many people who are extremely supportive of the ACLU haven't previously donated to them because of the perception that they're well-funded and that there are other organizations with a greater need. That is why, despite my consulting with them for the last couple of years, I've never suggested that people donate to them before. But this is no longer true. There is a genuine risk that this loss of funding can curtail vital ACLU activities and force the loss of critical lawyers and other personnel. The need for support is genuine and substantial, and I really encourage anyone who supports the truly indispensable work they do, and who is able to do do, to express that support through membership or donation.
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Death Penalty Study Commission News
Study Commission told there is no evidence
that the death penalty deters murder
by Arnie Alpert
April 14, 2010
If the death penalty had any effect on rates of violent crime it would show up in statistical comparisons of jurisdictions with the death penalty to those without it. Or it would show up in statistics when states change their laws one way or the other, or in the aftermath of publicized executions. But according to a criminologist and a mathematician who testified at a recent meeting of New Hampshire’s death penalty study commission, there is no reputable statistical evidence for a deterrent effect. “There may be other reasons to support the death penalty,” said Tomislav Kovandzic from the University of Texas at Dallas, “but the belief that it deters murder should not be one of them.”
Deterrence was the theme of the April 9 meeting, the Commission’s sixth since it was created by a 2009 act of the legislature. Each session has taken up a specific question based on the group’s statutory mandate, which in this case included “Whether the death penalty in New Hampshire rationally serves a legitimate public interest such as general deterrence, specific deterrence, punishment, or instilling confidence in the criminal justice system.”
John Lamperti, a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Dartmouth, has been looking at the statistical evidence for deterrence for some time. Defending the use of statistics in general and describing the difference between correlation and cause, he said in written testimony,
“We must define the question correctly. We are not asking whether
the threat of punishment, in general, deters crime, nor whether there
should be penalties for murder. The issue at stake is this: Does capital punishment, in a form that could be practiced in the United States, provide a better deterrent to murder than long imprisonment?” Lamperti’s conclusion is that there is no statistical evidence for a positive answer to that question.
Kovandzic has taken the issue further.Not satisfied with the reliability of earlier studies, the criminologist conducted his own, using complex computer models and data from 1977 to 2006 from both the FBI and CDC. In a paper published last year in a scholarly journal, Criminology and Public Policy, Kovandzic and his co-authors found “no evidence that presence of the DP or increases in any of nine execution risk measures studied reduce murder rates,” he said. Acknowledging that some researchers have reached other conclusions, he told the commission members, “You have to torture the data to come to a conclusion that there’s a deterrent effect of the death penalty.”
While no one testified that there is a deterrent effect, the Commission did
hear from several law enforcement officers who defended the death penalty, especially when applied to those who murder police officers. “The death penalty in New Hampshire is here for a reason,” said Belknap Country Sheriff Craig Wiggin, who said he doesn’t know whether it deters or not. But the death penalty “represents a vote of confidence in us,” he said.
Jill Rockey, a 15-year State Trooper, said she thinks the death penalty gives a choice to victims’ family members, even those who oppose capital punish-ment. But Gail Rice, whose police officer brother was murdered in Denver, said her long career working with offenders has given her a different view. Prior to the murder of her brother, Bruce CanderJagt, in 1997, Rice believed that “many criminals’ lives could be restored and redeemed, and that a restorative justice system was worth fighting for,” she told the Commission. “I still believe that today,” she added, “and I believe that there is nothing about that death penalty that is in any way restorative.”
According to Rice, a member of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, the death penalty is actually harmful to the family members of murder victims. “In cases where executions are actually carried out, survivors are often further devastated to find out that the execution does not bring them the peace and closure promised to them,” she testified.
The Commission also heard from Ray Krone, who spent 2 ½ years on Arizona’s death row and another 8 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. “I don’t want anyone killed in my name,” said Krone, who was the 100th person released from death row due to innocence in recent years. There is now way to estimate the number of innocent people who have been sentenced to prison, he said. “It can happen to anyone.”
At its next meeting, May 14, the Commission will ask “whether the death penalty comports with evolving moral standards.” Leaders of New Hampshire’s religious community are expected to testify, as is Barry Scheck, founder of the Innocence Project, and josh Rubinstein of Amnesty International. The meetings of the Commission are open to the public.
In June the commission will examine the process used by the Attorney General’s office to decide when to seek the death penalty.
The study commission also plans 3 public hearings in September, in Durham, Plymouth, and Keene, but has not yet announced details.
More information about the study commission is available on its website at: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/statstudcomm/committees/2009/
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