Here's why we must repeal the N.H. death penalty

To The Daily Sun,

As a former FBI agent, I sometimes dealt with people whose lives were grotesque compilations of terrible crimes that devastated families and communities. And for most of my life, I supported the death penalty. But several years ago, I changed my mind.

It’s an irrefutable fact that people are sentenced to death for crimes they didn’t commit. We know this because we continue to see death row inmates exonerated and released after years — sometimes decades — on death row. Our justice system isn’t perfect, and it makes mistakes. No person should ever forfeit his or her life because of the imperfections in our system.

While all men are created equal, all lawyers are not. There’s an adage that says, “You get the best justice money can buy.” Like it or not, there’s a significant disparity in the quality of legal counsel afforded to people from different economic backgrounds. Millionaires hire the best lawyers in the country; the indigent can’t, and the quality of their legal representation is not the same.

The people who operate our justice system aren’t perfect. Right here in New Hampshire, we have a secret list of 160 police officers who have compromised their integrity in the performance of their duties. They’ve lied under oath, withheld evidence, or done something else that places their integrity in question. Periodically, new officers are added to the list, and some are removed. Our men and women in blue are major players in the criminal justice system, and although most are people of courage and integrity, some are not. And sometimes their misdeeds are never unearthed.

Despite statements to the contrary, the death penalty is not a deterrent to committing murder. A person who commits premeditated murder has already made a conscious choice to do so, regardless of the penalty. And someone who kills in a fit of passion never took the time to think about the consequences. So there’s really no way to know whether anyone didn’t kill another human being because they feared the death penalty.

Finally, to those who have ever visited a prison, life in prison is a death sentence in another form. Spending the rest of your life in a cell, among a population of criminals of all sizes and shapes, is a grueling punishment.

At the end of the day, given the imperfections in our system, the imperfections in our human nature, the severity of the life sentence, and the ongoing exoneration of wrongly-convicted death row inmates, I believe “it’s better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man die.”

State Senator Bob Giuda

District 2

Warren