New Hampshire repealed its death penalty in 2019. Michael Addison is still on death row there. On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court refused to reopen his sentence, leaving him, in Boston 25 News’s words, the last man on death row in New England.
Connecticut faced almost the same situation a decade ago and came out the opposite way: its highest court held that once the legislature repealed the death penalty for future crimes, executing the people already on death row became unconstitutional. Massachusetts never got that far. Here is how three neighboring states ended up in three different places.
The New Hampshire ruling
Addison was sentenced to death in 2008 for shooting Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006 as Briggs tried to arrest him. The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence, and conducted the required proportionality review, in 2015, according to NBC10 Boston.
In 2019 the legislature repealed the death penalty, overriding Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto. The repeal applied to those convicted “on or after the effective date.” Addison’s lawyers asked the court for a new proportionality review, arguing that the repeal showed the state now considers the death penalty cruel and unusual.
The court disagreed, NBC10 reported. State law allows one proportionality review as part of the appeal, not successive reviews years later. And the legislature chose to make the repeal prospective: “If the legislature intended to provide successive comparative proportionality reviews for defendants convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death prior to the effective date of the act repealing the death penalty, it could have included that in the legislation, but it did not.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who as attorney general was the lead prosecutor in Addison’s case, has said commuting his sentence would be “a grave injustice.” New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939.
Connecticut: the court that said “no” to a prospective repeal
In 2012, Connecticut’s legislature passed Public Act 12-5, abolishing the death penalty for crimes committed after its effective date but leaving the men already sentenced to death on death row. Three years later, in State v. Santiago, decided August 25, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that executing them violated the state constitution.
The majority reasoned that once the legislature had decided the death penalty no longer served a purpose for future crimes, the punishment no longer comported with contemporary standards of decency for anyone. The dissenters were sharp. One wrote that the decision “replaces the rule of law with the rule of four,” and noted that a Connecticut jury had imposed a death sentence after the repeal, in the case of Richard Roszkowski. But the majority held, and Connecticut’s death row was emptied.
New Hampshire’s court has now declined to go down that road, at least on the procedural question Addison raised. The difference is not in the facts. It is in what each court thought the legislature meant by making repeal prospective, and in how far each court was willing to read its own constitution.
Massachusetts: no death row to empty
Massachusetts never reached the question because it has had no valid death penalty statute for more than four decades. The SJC struck down capital punishment as cruel or unusual under the state Declaration of Rights in 1980. Voters amended the constitution in 1982 to permit it. The SJC struck down the replacement statute in 1984. No capital statute has been in force since, and the maximum sentence under state law is life without parole. We walked through that history here.
The exception is federal. A person convicted of a federal capital crime in Massachusetts can be sentenced to death by a federal jury, as the Boston Marathon bomber was. That is also why the Justice Department’s 2025 decision not to seek death against Matthew Farwell, on trial this week in Boston on a federal witness killing charge, was a choice the federal government had to make at all.
Why the Christa Pike case is part of the backdrop
The New Hampshire ruling comes a week after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike on September 30, which prompted Gov. Bill Lee to halt executions there for the rest of the year. The two cases raise different questions. Pike’s is about method and whether a state may try again after a failed execution; Addison’s is about whether a state that has abolished the penalty may still carry out sentences imposed before repeal. Our report on Pike is here.
What is left for Addison
The state court route on proportionality is now closed. Executive clemency remains possible in theory, but Ayotte has said commutation would be a grave injustice. Any further federal challenge would face the usual limits on successive habeas petitions. Whether his lawyers will try has not been reported.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the last person on death row in New England?
Michael Addison, sentenced to death in New Hampshire in 2008 for killing Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs. On October 6, 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected his request for a new proportionality review.
Did New Hampshire abolish the death penalty?
Yes, in 2019, but only for crimes committed after the repeal took effect. Addison was already sentenced.
Why did Connecticut’s death row inmates get life instead?
In State v. Santiago (2015), the Connecticut Supreme Court held that after the 2012 prospective repeal, executing those already sentenced violated the state constitution.
Can anyone be sentenced to death in Massachusetts?
Not under state law. Massachusetts has had no valid death penalty statute since 1984. Federal capital charges can still be brought in federal court in Massachusetts.
Sources: NBC10 Boston, Boston 25 News and WHDH, October 6, 2026. State v. Santiago (Conn. Aug. 25, 2015), majority and dissenting opinions read on CourtListener. We have not read the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s October 6 opinion; quotations are as reported by NBC10. General information about the law, not legal advice.