NH close to becoming 19th state to abolish the death penalty

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I applaud this movement.

Am I the only person shocked that West Virginia doesn't have the death penalty?

I would think the land of Hatfields and McCoys and Appalachian frontier justice would be less soft.

Any yet they abolished it in 1965, before Furman.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This thread almost borders on trolling if you believe Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_New_Hampshire#List_of_individuals_executed

None since 1939?  They've already abolished it.

Not quite.  They do have one person on their death row.  The lack is a combination of being a small state and because they have a fairly restrictive list of circumstances that make a murderer eligible for the death penalty.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The vote has failed, 12-12. Senators Sam Cataldo and Bob Odell voted for repeal with the Democrats, and Lou D'Allessandro crossed to vote against repeal. There is no tiebreaker in the NH Senate, so the bill is dead.

I'm more concerned about the Senate President refusing to bring the decriminalization bill to the floor myself.

Right, because decriminalizing marijuana is clearly more important than making sure people who are wrongly convicted don't get executed for crimes they didn't commit

I think it is fairly safe to say that the one person on New Hampshire's death point (a row needs at least two people) was rightly convicted of crimes he did commit.  Heck, the guy confessed to doing it and there was a slew of forensic evidence and eyewitnesses.  The only thing the defense contested was whether it was first degree murder or second degree murder.

New Hampshire is not Texas.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The vote has failed, 12-12. Senators Sam Cataldo and Bob Odell voted for repeal with the Democrats, and Lou D'Allessandro crossed to vote against repeal. There is no tiebreaker in the NH Senate, so the bill is dead.

I'm more concerned about the Senate President refusing to bring the decriminalization bill to the floor myself.

Right, because decriminalizing marijuana is clearly more important than making sure people who are wrongly convicted don't get executed for crimes they didn't commit

Okay, you have absolutely no room to condescend to me. I'm pretty sure I know how my state works better than you.

Ernest explained most of it already, but the death penalty is all but repealed here in NH. Texas has executed more people this year than we have in the 20th century.

You're comparing New Hampshire to Texas, you know the state which has executed a handicapped recently. It's like saying "Franco wasn't that bad because he killed much less people than Hitler".

Your argument wasn't that it was bad for states to execute people, but that it was wrong for states to wrongfully execute people.  There's absolutely no evidence that New Hampshire will be doing that anytime soon even if it doesn't abolish its limited death penalty statute.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, clearly ensuring that a future potential mass murderer is not given what they deserve is more paramount of a concern than the thousands of lives that get destroyed every year due to the War on Drugs.

Actually, mass murder does not qualify one for the death penalty in New Hampshire, tho that commonly is something that qualifies one for the punishment in many jurisdictions that have the death penalty.  Most serial killers would qualify as they typically kidnap and/or sexually assault their victims first, but if someone were to do as the Beltway sniper or as the Sandy Hook shooter did then they would not be eligible for the death penalty in New Hampshire.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While Ernest already took most of the words all of my mouth, it's also worth noting that a white cop killer, Gordon Perry, in 1997 was offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. Michael Addison, the black man who killed a police officer, had his request denied and was sentenced to death.

Clearly race wasn't a factor, right?

Of course not.  Racism only occurs in the South.