New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty on Thursday when the state Senate voted to override Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto.
The Senate vote was 16 to eight, while the state House had earlier voted to override the veto 247 to 123, as Sununu fell short in his efforts to lobby legislators.
New Hampshire hasn’t executed anyone since 1939 and has only one person on death row. That person, Michael Addison, won’t be included in the new ban on capital punishment in the state, but he’s also unlikely to be executed, having been on death row for a decade and with no lethal injection drugs in the state.
But there’s a distance between not using the death penalty in practice and abolishing it in the law. “I think we’re better than that,” said state Sen. Bob Giuda, a Republican. “I think our state moving forward needs to transcend that issue.”