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March 14, 2007

The Honorable William V. Knowles
Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee
New Hampshire House of Representatives
Legislative Office Building, Room 204
Concord, New Hampshire 03301

RE: HB607

Dear Representative Knowles and Members of the Committee:

I come today, on my own behalf as a citizen of New Hampshire, and as the Bishop of Manchester on behalf of the Roman Catholic community in New Hampshire. I offer testimony in favor of HB607, which calls for the amendment of the capital murder statute in New Hampshire by eliminating the death penalty and replacing it with life imprisonment, until death, without the possibility of parole.

Today we examine this issue in an environment charged with our sorrow that a faithful public servant in Manchester was killed in the line of duty last year. We need to consider this horrible crime first, because this crime, without any doubt, casts its shadow over this legislation.

The murder of Officer Michael Briggs is a terrible tragedy, especially for his family, his colleagues, and his friends – as well as for every citizen of New Hampshire. Everyone is deeply saddened by his senseless murder, and we ought to continue to do all that we can to support his family and fellow law enforcement officers in Manchester and throughout our state. Justice needs to be served, and those responsible for his murder deserve the strictest punishment that the law can reasonably require.

Therefore, it is in these heartbreaking circumstances that we are asked to examine what the strictest punishment ought to be in our state. As a citizen and as a pastor, I believe that the taking of a human life through the death penalty is unnecessary to ensure public safety today and is not consistent with preserving the dignity of human life. The state can protect its citizens through a sentence of life without parole and not have to resort to lethal force. The use of capital punishment today has the potential of contributing to the culture of violence that we all seek to eliminate from our society. None of us wants to live in a culture of violence. I believe that it is in the best interest of every citizen of New Hampshire that our capital murder statute be amended as proposed in HB607 so that citizens can expect that the state will only use lethal force when it is justifiable; in other words, when that force is applied in self-defense or the defense of others.

The teachings of the Catholic Church, rooted in reason and in faith, note that human life is sacred, and that every human person has inestimable value. Every human life deserves the utmost respect from the moment of conception until natural death. The unjustified taking of another person’s life violates the dignity of what it means to be human.

Our Catholic tradition does support the understanding that every person has the right to defend oneself, and that taking another person’s life in defense of one’s own – or in the protection of public safety by legitimate public authority – is justified. Therefore, there is moral justification for the taking of another person’s life as an act of self-defense. In these instances, the person who defends oneself or others is a defender of life.

In HB 607, the citizens of New Hampshire are asked to distinguish between what violent persons do, and what we ought to do as a civil society. The taking of life by capital punishment is not an act of self-defense in these modern times. We cannot turn back the clock and save anyone who has been a victim of violent crime. The time for them to exercise their right to self-defense has been tragically lost forever. What we can do, though, is rise above the unjust violence that the death penalty institutionalizes, and as a community of goodwill, not allow ourselves to contribute to this culture of death and violence.

We owe one another more than unjustified death as a solution to violent crime. Therefore, I ask you, as those elected to lead us, to support HB607, and ensure that punishment for capital crimes in New Hampshire is certainly punishable in the strictest form allowed by justice, but not by death.

Ever grateful for your dedication to public service, I remain

Sincerely yours,

/s/ + John B. McCormack

Bishop of Manchester