October 27, 2009
New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939, and its death row has only one inhabitant, Michael Addison, an African-American man convicted in 2008 of killing a White police officer. The New Hampshire Supreme Court now has its first occasion to conduct what is known as “proportionality review,” an appellate procedure aimed at ensuring that death sentences are proportional to sentences given in similar cases, not freakish wanton or random, and not based on race or prejudice. The Capital Punishment Project and Racial Justice Program have filed an amicus brief with the court, proposing methods for how the court can design its proportionality review to accomplish these goals.
