The New Hampshire ACLU is throwing down the race card in its support of convicted cop killer Michael Addison as he appeals his death sentence.
Addison, who murdered Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006, is preparing for a hearing in front of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, arguing that when the state repealed the death penalty in 2019, his sentence should have been changed, too.
The ACLU and a group of anti-death-penalty legal scholars are going further, arguing in an amicus brief that Addison’s race played a key role in the jury’s decision to put him on death row.
“[T]his Court should consider the legion of social science research explaining the ways that race likely contributed to the death sentence of a poor, Black man who did not ‘purposefully kill’ the victim,” wrote senior ACLU attorney Henry Klementowicz.
Klementowicz points out that Addison was sentenced to death the same year John Brooks, a White multimillionaire, got a life sentence for the far more deliberate murder of handyman Jack Reid.
“As the history of the death penalty and social science could have easily predicted, Mr. Brooks (sentenced to life) was rich and white while Mr. Addison (condemned to die) was poor and Black,” Klementowicz wrote.
The ACLU is known for its far-left politics, as evidenced by its promotion of the “Defund the Police” movement in 2020, for example. It has also abandoned its adamant defense of free speech, now arguing that “First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by people of power and privilege,” as former ACLU Racial Justice Director Dennis Parker put it.
In the Addison case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether the killer’s death sentence is proportional to other similar crimes now that the death penalty has been repealed. Klementowicz argues that Addison’s death sentence wasn’t even proportional to other murders in 2008.
Addison and his partner in crime, Antoine Bell-Rodgers, had pulled off three violent armed robberies in the days before Briggs was murdered. On Oct. 16, 2006, Briggs and fellow Manchester Police Officer John Breckenridge responded to a report of a fight at the home of Bell-Rodgers and Addison.
The two men allegedly tried to leave when they saw the officers, but Briggs ordered the pair to stop. Bell-Rodgers did stop, but Addison kept walking away. Briggs ordered him again to stop, and that was when Addison turned around and shot Briggs in the head. Briggs, at that point, had not unholstered his pistol. Addison fled the state and was later caught in Dorchester, Mass.
Klementowicz argues the Briggs murder was the result of a single gunshot fired as Addison was trying to evade arrest, and the trial jury even found that Addison did not plan to kill anyone when he shot Briggs.
“The jury found that the state failed to prove that Mr. Addison ‘purposely killed’ the officer but did find proof that he ‘purposely inflicted serious bodily injury which resulted in death,’” Klementowicz wrote.
In contrast, Brooks had been actively trying to kill Reid for years before the 2005 murder in Deerfield. He hired men in 2003 to kill Reid, and after multiple failed attempts, they finally succeeded with Brooks’ participation.
“When those he hired to kill finally attacked the victim with a sledgehammer, Brooks was not only present, but himself delivered the final blows that killed the victim,” Klementowicz wrote.
Brooks went on trial for capital murder and could have received the death penalty, but his jury instead voted for life without parole.
Addison’s lawyers, Jonathan Cohen and Michael Wiseman, also filed their Supreme Court brief last week, arguing that keeping Addison on death row would impose an aberrational and arbitrary sentence on just one man. Addison is the only New Hampshire citizen currently awaiting the death penalty, and thanks to the repeal, he’s likely the last Granite Stater to ever go on death row.
“The time has come. The legislature’s repeal of the death penalty ensures that juries cannot, and will not, impose a sentence of death in any murder case—whether the case is materially identical to Mr. Addison’s or is far more aggravated. The repeal necessarily means, therefore, that only Mr. Addison can and will be subject to the death penalty, no matter how many similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant, yield capital murder convictions,” the lawyers wrote. “Thus, Mr. Addison’s death sentence has necessarily become aberrational and arbitrary—and it will become increasingly aberrational and arbitrary as time passes.”
But politics may have overtaken their argument. Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who prosecuted the Addison case, is calling for New Hampshire to bring back capital punishment.
Talking to reporters last month, Ayotte said capital punishment “is important” when it comes to protecting law enforcement, “sometimes from very dangerous and career criminals.”
“That’s what we had in the case of Michael Addison, and that’s why I sought the death penalty as attorney general. That is one issue where I would like to see the death penalty restored.”
If Addison is executed, New Hampshire would become the first and only state to execute an inmate after repealing its death penalty, according to Klementowicz.
