Hanover
“I wasn’t gone but 10 minutes,” Butler said, “and that 10 minutes almost cost me the rest of my life.”
When she returned, her baby was unresponsive. Butler tried to administer CPR, but her son was dead. Scared that she’d get in trouble for leaving her baby alone, Butler wasn’t truthful with police. The next day, she was taken to an interrogation room and bullied for hours until she signed a confession that she’d murdered her son.
“So they did sentence me to die,” Butler said.
The now-exonerated Butler was one of the main speakers, along with local author Jodi Picoult, for a fundraiser to repeal New Hampshire’s death penalty law on Tuesday evening. There was a sense of excitement among the 100 or so attendees at Dartmouth’s Top of the Hop; though Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a death penalty repeal bill last year, several lawmakers in attendance said that with a new Legislature in place, they may have the votes to override.
“I think we do have the numbers,” said state Sen. Martha Hennessey, D-Hanover, though she cautioned they’d have to wait and see.
Recently, Hennessey’s daughter became a public defender in Boston, which rekindled the issue for her. Because it’s about taking a human life, the death penalty is troubling for many people regardless of their political affiliation, Hennessey said. Some may worry about the state having too much power, while others are concerned about the sanctity of life.
“There are people who come at it from all different reasons but still end up at the same place,” Hennessey said, adding: “It just cuts to the quick.”
New Hampshire is one of 30 states that allows the death penalty, and the only state in New England to do so. That said, it’s used sparingly. The last execution in New Hampshire took place in 1939, and today the state has only one death row inmate: Michael Addison, who was convicted of murdering Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006.
The new repeal bill, House Bill 455, would not retroactively change Addison’s sentence.
In vetoing the bill last June, Sununu said he stood with “crime victims, members of the law enforcement community, and advocates for justice in opposing this bill,” and that he was confident New Hampshire has a “fair process” to protect defendants’ rights.
“Abolishing the death penalty in New Hampshire would send the wrong message to those who commit the most heinous offenses within our State’s borders, namely that New Hampshire is a place where a person who commits an unthinkable crime is guaranteed leniency,” Sununu wrote.
State Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, has been pushing death penalty repeal for years and is a sponsor of the bipartisan bill. Though Cushing lost his father to murder, he doesn’t see the death penalty as a way to help a victim’s family.
“In reality, it doesn’t do the one thing that we really want, and that’s to bring the loved one back,” he said.
After six years in prison and on death row, Butler’s new lawyers proved her son had a medical condition that caused his death, freeing her. Today, Butler keeps a busy travel schedule, visiting more states than she can keep track of to share her story.
Butler supports criminals serving jail time but argues that the death penalty is wrong. Mistakes can be made. Officials cut corners. And racial biases can lead to unfair sentencing.
“Why are you giving some people the death penalty and not others? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Butler, who is African-American.
“None of us are perfect. None of us,” she said, asking what happens if the wrong person is executed. “How can you fix that mistake?”
Earlier, Picoult spoke about meeting a death row inmate while researching her book, Change of Heart. They became correspondents, writing about TV shows and their families. He painted. She could see his life had value.
“He was by all accounts a very nice man who had committed a very heinous act,” she said.
Picoult also criticized the death penalty for being costly and not deterring crime.
Leane Garland, of Hanover, found inspiration in the evening’s speakers. Like others in the room, she wore a yellow button that read, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show killing people is wrong?”
“The button says it all,” she said.
Allyn Field, of Lebanon, was glad to hear hope from lawmakers. Years ago Field read Dead Man Walking, the book about author Sister Helen Prejean’s experiences with a death row inmate, and the story resonated.
“There’s no reason why we can’t give people an opportunity for a life in prison, and an opportunity to change their ways,” he said.
Barbara Keshen, who chairs the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which organized the event, said she is optimistic about repealing capital punishment, but that new lawmakers will need to be educated and lobbied.
“When I look out and see this crowd in Hanover, New Hampshire,” she said to applause, “I know this is going to be the year.”
Matt Golec can be reached at mattgolec@gmail.com.