New Hampshire Supreme Court to hear death row inmate's appeal for life sentence

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New Hampshire's only inmate on death row has been granted a rare opportunity to plead his case for a life sentence before the state's highest court.

In a brief single-page order handed down Monday, New Hampshire's Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of Michael Addison, 45, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs in 2006.

The decision is a surprising development in a case where the court had repeatedly denied reconsidering Addison's death sentence, and upheld that execution was an appropriate punishment a decade prior.

But in 2019, New Hampshire lawmakers narrowly abolished the death penalty despite fears from Briggs' family and others that doing so would result in Addison's sentence being commuted. At the time, supporters stressed that the repeal wouldn't apply retroactively to Addison, but others warned that courts could interpret it differently — something that Addison's attorneys are hoping for as well.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican and former state attorney general who advocated for Addison's death sentence, has previously described Addison as a “cold-blood­ed, cold­heart­ed, remorse­less killer.”

Part of her successful gubernatorial campaign last year included TV ads that touted she “put a cop killer on death row."

“Commuting his sentence would be a grave injustice and an insult to Officer Briggs’ family and law enforcement,” Ayotte said in a statement on Tuesday.

Briggs was killed on Oct. 16, 2006, while responding to a domestic disturbance call in Manchester, New Hampshire, involving Addison, who was then 26 years old. After arriving at the scene, Briggs told Addison to stop walking away. Addison fatally shot Briggs and then fled to his grandmother's house in Massachusetts. He was arrested later that day and eventually convicted of capital murder in 2008 and sentenced to die.

Currently, 23 states have abolished or overturned the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Among the 27 states that allow capital punishment, governors have issued moratoriums on the death penalty in four of them.

New Hampshire hasn’t executed anyone since 1939.