House Votes to Repeal Capital Punishment (click title to entry - thank you)
By Dan Gorenstein on Wednesday, March 25, 2009.
New Hampshire House lawmakers shocked many today when they voted to repeal the state’s death penalty.
The measure passed by 19 votes, one-hundred ninety-three to one-hundred seventy-four.
This comes after a jury sentenced Michael Addison to death last fall for the murder of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports.
This year death penalty opponents had their hopes on a bill to study the issue.
That measure sailed through the House.
Nobody, really, thought the bill to repeal the death penalty had a chance.
In fact, many members left their seats, or chatted as the first few Representatives spoke in favor of the legislation.
But then....
TAPE: the chair recognizes the member from Hampton, Representative Cushing....Thank you Madame Speaker, members of the House....
....Democrat Renny Cushing started talking about how his dad was murdered.
TAPE: my father was sitting at the kitchen table reading Foster’s Daily Democrat, and my mother was on the couch watching the Boston Celtics playoff game...There was a knock on the front door....my dad got up to open it...and two shotgun blasts rang out, turned his chest into hamburger and he died in front of my mother in the home they lived in for 35 years and raised their seven years.
On hearing such intimate details, House members grew quiet and leaned forward.
Cushing went on.
TAPE: an old friend came up to me and he said, ‘you know Renny, I hope they fry the bastards. I hope they fry the bastards so your mother, and you and your family can get some piece.”
But he says he didn’t have the “normal” reaction to his father’s murder.
On principle, Cushing had always opposed to the death penalty.
And he said, if he changed his opinion in the wake of the murder, he would only give his father’s murderer more power.
TAPE: because not only would my father be taken from me. But so would my values. And it’s the same for society as it is for individuals. If we let those who kill, make us into killers, than evil triumphs. And we all lose.
SFX: That was amazing, honey. That was amazing.
After the vote, teary eyed lawmakers greeted Cushing, people patted his back, others just gave long knowing looks....
