Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform – New Hampshire

Here is a photo taken back in April of 2014 when The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty held its recent quarterly meeting in Concord, followed by a State House reception for some of their New Hampshire allies. At the far left in front is John-Michael Dumais, executive director of the NH Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Behind him is Chris Dornin, founder of Citizens for Criminal Justice reform. Behind and to Dornin's left is Rep. Renny Cushing, prime sponsor of the death penalty repeal bill.  Raymond Dodge, a former New Hampshire police chief, is wearing the blue shirt in the front row. Click to see photo-

It took three challenging years for New Hampshire prisoners to win themselves a decent chance to earn modest sentence reductions. Make that five years if you count all the ups and downs in the fight over SB 500, the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act of 2010.

The New Hampshire Senate this morning blocked capital punishment repeal by a 12-12 tally, then voted 24-0 to table that bill, HB 1170. Senate President Chuck Morse (R-Salem) said a simple majority could thus bring the legislation off the table for another showdown before the end of the legislative session.

Senators vote Thursday morning, April 17th on HB 1170 to abolish the death penalty, a bill that sailed through the House by 225-104. Supporters of repeal will circle the State House (8:30a.m.) during the Senate floor session holding candles to let lawmakers know a lot of people care about the issue. Nobody tell how the showdown vote will go, because some senators are still undecided.  (We'll start by meeting at 8:30AM on the State House lawn to form a human... ring around the State House. Once the session begins at 10AM, we'll move to the Senate Chambers in the State House. The Senate will be discussing a number of bills before ours, but we anticipate HB1170 will be taken up before they break for lunch.)