New Hampshire

State Supreme Court

  • R (2-2-1)
  • The one is vacant, governor hasn’t nominated a replacement, but governor is R.

Eighth Amendment Cognate

  • Part I, Article 33 of the State Constitution provides that “no magistrate, or court of law, shall demand excessive bail or sureties, impose excessive fines, or inflict cruel or unusual punishments.” N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 33
  • All penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offense. No wise Legislature will affix the same punishment to the crimes of theft, forgery, and the like, which they do to those of murder and treason. Where the same undistinguishing severity is exerted against all offenses, the people are led to forget the real distinction in the crimes themselves, and to commit the most flagrant with as little compunction as they do the lightest offenses. For the same reason a multitude of sanguinary laws is both impolitic and unjust. The true design of all punishments being to reform, not to exterminate mankind. N.H. CONST. pt. 1, art. 18.
  • N.H. REV. STAT. ANN. §§ 623-B:1 to 623-B:3 (Supp. 2002).