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Committee hears emotional arguments for and against narrowing New Hampshire’s trial‑petition time limit
Summary
Proponents of HB1422 told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the three‑year absolute bar to filing a motion for a new trial prevents innocent people from seeking relief when new evidence emerges; prosecutors and the attorney general’s office urged a narrowly tailored exception to avoid frivolous petitions and resource drains.
Representative Tom Mannion introduced House Bill 1422 to create a narrow exception to New Hampshire’s three‑year limit on petitions for a new trial when newly discovered evidence — including new forensic testing or confessions — comes to light.
Mannion called the bill a measure to correct wrongful convictions, explaining the proposal would not change legal standards but would allow petitions based on material new evidence to be considered beyond the current absolute deadline. He said the bill is about "liberty, fairness and due process."
Witnesses who had been wrongfully convicted described long incarcerations that, they said, would not have been rectified under New Hampshire's current time bar. "If I was a resident of New Hampshire, I would still be in prison," said one exoneree, recounting a case where the true perpetrator later confessed.
County attorneys and the attorney general’s technical staff expressed concern about broad phrasing in the bill that could invite a flood of pro se petitions, impose heavy discovery burdens on prosecutors, and require calling victims back to court decades later. Stratford County Attorney Emily Garrod told senators that responding to a single frivolous or poorly supported post‑conviction petition can consume many hours of staff time and court resources.
The AG’s office recommended more precise language tied to established standards — for example, limiting exceptions to evidence that could not have been discovered with reasonable diligence, newly available forensic testing, or material Brady‑type nondisclosures — and cautioned that existing habeas writs and other remedies already address some cases.
Supporters, including the New England Innocence Project, urged the committee to recognize cases where new evidence is the only realistic path to justice. They said safeguards in the draft bill (requiring petitioners to state the newly discovered evidence and provide prima facie thresholds) could screen out non‑meritorious filings.
Committee members asked detailed follow‑ups about the draft statutory language and the interaction with existing remedies; no final vote was taken at the hearing. The committee asked stakeholders to consider narrower language to balance the goal of rescuing wrongful convictions with the workload concerns raised by prosecutors.
