New Hampshire lawmakers are taking up a range of bills this month that would reinstate the use of the death penalty in the state, almost seven years after it was repealed. The proposals this year, all sponsored by Republicans, come as the use of capital punishment is on the rise in several other states and as President Trump has pushed for more aggressive use of the death penalty.
While the fate of the bills now under discussion in the State House remains unclear, the debate comes as Gov. Kelly Ayotte — a former attorney general who prosecuted New Hampshire’s last death penalty case — has made clear she wants to return capital punishment to state statutes.
Arguments for and against capital punishment mostly spoke past each other in a series of committee hearings in Concord this week.
“Firmly, I believe — and even as a Catholic who believes that every life is sacred — that the crimes that are being committed here ruin the lives of the victims and the survivors, that we can’t live in a society with those that perpetuate it,” said Rep. Joe Sweeney, House Deputy Majority Leader and a lead sponsor of a bill that would make the rape of children under 13 a capital offense in New Hampshire.
Backers of the death penalty bills, which include a proposal that would allow people convicted of first- or second-degree murder to be sentenced to death, pitched them as reasonable and well-considered. Rep. Seth King of Whitefield told the House’s Criminal Justice Committee that he’d only come to support capital punishment after careful deliberation.
“I was against the death penalty, mainly because I didn't trust the state enough to, you know, convict people fairly, but as I’ve gotten older I now see again the wisdom of it,” King said.
But death penalty supporters were far outnumbered during the bills’ first hearings Wednesday and Thursday, where critics of capital punishment showed up in force.
“It is murder, period: the state-sanctioned killing of someone,” said Marynia Cushing Page of Exeter, whose father Robert Cushing was murdered by a former policeman in 1988.
In addition to moral arguments against capital punishment, critics emphasized the expense associated with death penalty cases, where legal costs often run into the millions and taxpayers generally foot the bill for prosecutors and defendants alike.
“As our state is trying to desperately balance its budget while addressing the human needs of affordable housing, proper education and the escalating costs affecting medical care, the redirected funds aimed at ending a life would be better spent on those needs,” said Manchester Bishop Peter Libasci.
Paul Hildwin was sentenced to death in Florida for a 1985 killing he didn’t commit, before having his death sentence overturned by DNA evidence nearly three decades later. He recounted the toll that took on him to lawmakers.
“I lost my family, I lost my health. I went in when I was 24. I came out when I was 60,” Hildwin said.
A shift from earlier repeal efforts
If lawmakers move to reinstate the death penalty here — a possibility that felt remote during these initial hearings but may yet happen — it would represent a big shift in the political momentum on an issue that for years has generated passionate debate in Concord.
Lawmakers repealed the death penalty in 2019, overriding a veto by then-Gov Chris Sununu. At the time, New Hampshire was among a number of states that outlawed the practice or limited its use.
New Hampshire’s push to abolish the death penalty came as state and federal courts were limiting the scope for capital punishment. Between 2015 and 2025, five states repealed their capital punishment laws. But according to the National Council of State Legislatures, seven states have since expensed their use of capital punishment.
Arkansas, Tennessee and Idaho have all passed laws allowing for the death penalty in some cases of child rape. Florida, meanwhile, passed five statutes to expand use of the death penalty, including proposals to make some human trafficking offenses, the killing of the head of state or governor, and any murder committed by an illegal immigrant to be punishable by death. Other new policies in that state limit post-conviction appeal rights.
According to Stateline.org, more people were executed in 2025 than in any single year in over a decade.
This state-level movement comes as President Trump is also backing the expanded use of the death penalty. But it also coincides with decline in public support for the death penalty. According to Gallup, support for the death penalty is now as low as it has been in decades, hovering just above 50%.
In New Hampshire, Ayotte’s support for capital punishment is a key factor. As attorney general, Ayotte led the state’s prosecution of Michael Addison in the 2006 murder of Manchester police officer Michael Briggs. Addison is the state’s lone death row inmate, with his case on appeal.
The state’s repeal of the death penalty is an issue Addison’s lawyers have argued should warrant commuting his sentence to life in prison.
Ayotte, meanwhile, has yet to weigh in on any of the pending bills to restore or expand the death penalty in New Hampshire. But she has said she wants it back.
"I would like to see the death penalty restored,” Ayotte told reporters last year.
New Hampshire hasn’t executed an inmate since 1939.
