With a death row of 1, New Hampshire weighs ending capital punishment

CONCORD, N.H. — Soon after the man who killed his father with a shotgun blast to the chest was captured, Renny Cushing ran into a friend at the grocery store, who said that he hoped the culprit would be executed so that Cushing’s family could find some peace.

“I didn’t know how to respond,” recalled Cushing, who is now a New Hampshire state representative. “I knew he was trying to give me some comfort.”

Cushing, a Democrat, was then — and is today — a death penalty opponent. And in the 31 years since his father’s murder, he has become one of the nation’s leading opponents of capital punishment. But his efforts at repeal in his home state have always fallen short.

On Thursday, though, New Hampshire moved a step closer to becoming the last state in New England to end capital punishment after the state Senate voted 17-6 in favor of repealing the death penalty. That followed a 279-88 vote for repeal in the state House last month.

Twice before — in 2000, and again last year — both chambers have voted for repeal, only to be blocked by a governor’s veto.

But this time, the House and the Senate each voted with the two-thirds majority necessary to override another threatened veto by the governor, Chris Sununu, a Republican who is a capital punishment proponent.

Once the legislation reaches his desk, Sununu would have five days to issue a veto. His office did not immediately say after the vote on Thursday whether he still intends to veto the bill. The margin of the Senate’s vote on Thursday appeared to make it unlikely that Sununu can block a repeal.

If the legislation becomes law, New Hampshire would become the 21st state to get rid of the death penalty, continuing a national trend toward fewer executions. Bills to limit the application of the death penalty or to repeal it also have been...