In both chambers, the measure to override the governor's veto passed by a single vote to secure the two thirds majority required.
In the case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence was issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there was no retrial).
In three other cases, capital murder charges were resolved before trial, twice because the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled the law authorizing the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
According to state law: The punishment of death shall be inflicted by continuous, intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of an ultrashort-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent…[7]It was also possible for executions to be carried out by hanging.
In 1959, Frederick Martineau and Russell Nelson were convicted of murdering a businessman in a Nashua parking lot, who was scheduled to testify in a Rhode Island burglary case.
They were spared the death penalty in 1972 when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) that "unitary trial" procedure, in which the jury was asked to return a verdict of guilt or innocence and, simultaneously, determine whether the defendant would be punished by death or life imprisonment, was in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.