This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
New Hampshire’s Supreme Court has dismissed a petition from Michael Addison, the state’s only death row inmate, to reconsider his sentence.
Addison, now 46, shot and killed Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006 and was convicted and sentenced to death in 2008. New Hampshire abolished capital punishment in 2019, but lawmakers included language upholding the sentence of anyone convicted before the law went into effect — at the time, there was only Addison.
Lawyers for Addison argued that a state execution would run contrary both to current law and to changing “standards of decency.” New Hampshire’s highest court dismissed his case Tuesday, writing that lawmakers had not authorized further review of death penalty cases.
“If the legislature intended to provide successive comparative proportionality reviews for defendants convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death prior to the effective date of the act repealing the death penalty,” the decision states, “it could have included that in the legislation, but it did not.”
Addison’s legal team said they were “disappointed in the Court’s decision.”
“We continue to believe that the law compellingly supports the conclusion that in the wake of New Hampshire’s repeal of the death penalty, Mr. Addison’s death sentence cannot stand,” Attorney Jonathan Cohen said in a statement.
Part of a required review for all death penalty cases, the Supreme Court affirmed in 2015 that Addison’s sentence was “neither excessive nor disproportionate.”
Given the law change, he requested that his sentence be reviewed again. However, the Supreme Court determined that an additional review of the proportionality of his sentence was not allowed.
The decision was written by Justice Melissa Countway. The other two current justices, Patrick Donovan and Brian Gould, concurred.
Attorney General John Formella praised the outcome.
“This decision marks an important step in the ongoing post-conviction process , and we hope it provides some measure of relief to the Briggs family,” Formella said in a statement. “The Department remains committed to pursuing justice for victims and their families and holding accountable those who harm members of our law enforcement community.”
Governor Kelly Ayotte, in her former role as attorney general, prosecuted Addison’s case and opposed his appeals. She has voiced support for bringing back the death penalty. The Attorney General’s office, in opposing Addison’s petition, argued that it is possible for capital punishment to return.
The New Hampshire House rejected a bill this year that would have reinstated it.
Sruthi Gopalakrishnan of the Concord Monitor contributed to this report.
