The Death Penalty is Political.

The death penalty is political. The death penalty is sound-bite-able.

As made clear in the recent political debates, US Senate Candidate Kelly Ayotte views the death penalty prosecution of Michael Addison as a campaign asset.

The death penalty plays to people’s fears and prejudices. It can be trotted out in a 30 second commercial. A politician for the death penalty is one that will claim to make us safer--even though this claim is not true and the extra cost of the death penalty over life in prison necessarily means that money will not be available for other needs, such as more and better equipped cops on the beat, or better schools, or better drug treatment programs, or job creation. Debunking the death penalty requires thoughtful conversation. Refuting the claims of the politicians cannot be done in short commercials.

Being for the death penalty is helpful to politicians---except when it is not. Candidate Ayotte swapped emails with her campaign political director about the death penalty while they planned Ms. Ayotte’s run for office. The emails included a crass joke by the political operative (What’s your position on the death penalty? Near the switch.). Here’s how the mixing of the political decision making and the death penalty will likely play out for New Hampshire’s only death sentence resulting in an outcome that Ms. Ayotte will not like, but for which she will be responsible.

The lawyers for Michael Addison asked the trial judge before trial to allow discovery about how the prosecutors in the case came to the decision to seek the death penalty. They also challenged the death penalty because the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office does not have procedures in place to guide this life and death decision, as other prosecutors do. The defense was rebuffed on two grounds. The prosecution’s decision making was held to be confidential or privileged from disclosure and, although the defense lawyers expressed their concerns about the lack of due process, they had no evidence to show anything improper was considered by Ms. Ayotte when she decided to seek the death penalty.

The emails between Ms. Ayotte and her political advisor are now relevant to Addison’s defense because in communicating with the advisor—who was not a member of her prosecution team—Ms. Ayotte may have waived the State’s privilege to confidentiality. By intertwining the decision to seek the death penalty with talk of politics, Ms. Ayotte may have given the defense evidence that she improperly considered her political ambition in making her decision to seek the death penalty. Evidence of the political considerations support the defense team’s claim that Mr. Addison was denied the due process of law. The State’s Supreme Court is also charged by statute to search for the influence of improper factors when reviewing Mr. Addison’s sentence of death. Race and politics are two factors likely to be considered. In the long run, Ms. Ayotte’s zeal to use the death penalty for political gain may jeopardize the conviction and sentence she so coveted.