USA - New Hampshire. House committee votes to repeal the death penalty

House committee votes to repeal the death penalty. Today the House Criminal Justice and Public Works Committee voted 14-3 to pass House Bill 1170 repealing the death penalty in New Hampshire. The vote to approve the repeal is the 1st for the committee, which has never backed doing away with the death penalty before. The bill's prime sponsor, committee vice chair Rep. Robert Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, whose father was gunned down by an off-duty Hampton police officer in 1988, said after the vote, "It's been a long process and we still have a long ways to go." Lawmakers voted to repeal the death penalty in 2000 when Jeanne Shaheen was governor, but she vetoed the bill and lawmakers failed to override. Other attempts to repeal the state's capital murder statute have failed in either the House or the Senate. The full House will vote on HB 1170 within the next month.