(The Heart Sq.) – New Hampshire Legal professional Normal John Formella says he will not be submitting costs towards a handful of protesters who final 12 months disrupted an Government Council listening to on proposed COVID-19 vaccine rules.
The Government Council assembly was shut down after anti-vaccine protesters packed a corridor on the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm Faculty, disrupting the proceedings. State police had been referred to as.
On the time, the council was reconsidering its rejection of two contracts by the state to simply accept $27 million in federal funds for the state’s COVID-19 vaccine program. Whereas the council accredited the contracts two months later, the delay in funding pressured the state Division of Well being and Human Service to spend $5 million to maintain the vaccine program working.
Formella mentioned the seven-month investigation confirmed that whereas there was “possible trigger” a few of the protesters on the Sept. 29 assembly could have violated state regulation by obstructing the proceedings, state prosecutors seemingly would not have been in a position to present any felony wrongdoing.
“These people would have sure constitutional and statutory defenses out there to them at trial and primarily based on these defenses, and different evidentiary points, the state can be unable to maintain its burden of proving these people responsible past an affordable doubt,” Formella mentioned in an announcement.
Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, criticized the protesters for a “mob mentality” by threatening state workers and disrupting the assembly. He additionally accused them and council members of jeopardizing public well being by opposing the federal funding for the vaccine program.
Home Speaker Sherman Packard, a Londonderry Republican, referred to as the protesters’ actions “disgraceful and opposite to civil public discourse.”
Government Councilor Cinde Warmington, the panel’s lone Democrat, described the protestors as “a far-right fringe mob” who put the protection of state workers in danger.
Formella mentioned the investigation, which was performed by the AG’s Public Integrity Unit, labored with investigators from the New Hampshire State Police to assessment the conduct of people who had been at that assembly. The probe included interviews with witnesses, and a assessment of video surveillance and TV information footage of the assembly.
He mentioned following the authorized assessment the AG’s workplace will “take no additional motion” on the matter.