Mont Vernon rep seeks to expand death penalty

Thursday, November 5, 2009

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN

Staff Writer

CONCORD – A Mont Vernon legislator unveiled plans Tuesday to expand the death penalty to include home invasions by those who have the intent to kill.

If adopted, the measure would be named after Kimberly Cates, who was brutally stabbed to death in her home Oct. 4. Her daughter, Jaimie, was seriously injured and hospitalized for several weeks after the attack.

Republican state Rep. Bill O’Brien said residents have an expectation of privacy and safety.

“We should be able to be in our homes to be safe. We shouldn’t have to take extraordinary safety measures to do that,” O’Brien said.

The current capital punishment law is limited in its scope to include killings of judges, police, officers of the court, murders for hire or first- degree murder while committing a drug deal, rape or kidnapping.

Last December, a jury sentenced Michael Addison to death for the October 2007 slaying of Manchester patrolman Michael Briggs. Lawyers for Addison are appealing the punishment.

A new commission began meeting last month to undertake a yearlong, cost-benefit analysis of the death penalty versus a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Retired Superior Court Chief Justice Walter Murphy chairs the panel that must issue a final report by Dec. 1, 2010.

Rep. Jim Splaine, D-Portsmouth, said he hopes lawmakers reject this proposal and any other to alter the death penalty law while the commission is doing its work.

‘’Anything else other than doing its job right now would be politics, and we shouldn’t be playing politics with the death penalty,” said Splaine, a member of the commission and longtime death penalty opponent.

Sen. Sheila Roberge, R-Bedford, will author this bill in the Senate; O’Brien and Rep. Robert Mead, R-Mont Vernon, will ask the House Rules Committee for permission to get the bill into the House.

Placing it before both bodies at the same time could speed up final action and increase the likelihood of success, O’Brien said.

The deadline for offering House legislation for the 2010 session has passed.

“Many people can’t believe that this murder in our town is not a death penalty case,” Mead said.

O’Brien, a trial lawyer, admitted the bill would require a prosecutor to prove pre-meditation on the part of the actor, since the overwhelming majority of home invasions do not result in murder.

New Hampshire has not executed a criminal in more than 70 years.