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John Doe cops asking N.H. Supreme Court to spare their reputations – The Boston Globe

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John Doe cops asking N.H. Supreme Court to spare their reputations – The Boston Globe


While each lawsuit turns on its own set of facts, these cases together reflect long-running debate over the extent to which information about police misconduct must be made public. They could also clarify whether off-the-job misconduct or relatively minor incidents justify putting an officer’s name on the list.

“These are really important cases concerning the standard that’s going to be applied with respect to when an officer is placed on the list,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

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The ACLU and the New Hampshire Department of Justice haven’t always seen eye to eye on how transparent the state should be about its Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, but Bissonnette said the DOJ deserves a lot of credit for its careful approach to interpreting the constitutional and statutory factors at play in determining which officers to place on the list.

“The attorney general’s office — this attorney general and prior attorneys general — clearly have taken seriously that obligation concerning placement and are doing a commendable job in litigating these cases,” he said.

Prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose evidence that could help defendants poke holes in the criminal charges brought against them, including evidence from police personnel files. In 1995, because prosecutors had withheld records that reflected poorly on the character and credibility of a detective who testified against Carl Laurie at trial, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Laurie’s first-degree murder conviction.

That led the DOJ to keep what was known as the “Laurie List,” a tool to help prosecutors identify officers with known credibility issues, whose personnel files could include exculpatory evidence that may need to be disclosed to defendants.

The list, which became known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, was kept confidential for decades. But the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that it isn’t exempt from disclosure under the state’s public records law. The legislature then enacted a statute in 2021 to designate the list as a public record and establish a process and timeline for officers to file lawsuits challenging their placement on the list.

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Of the 266 names now listed, 50 remain redacted from public view as dozens of John Doe lawsuits move through the judicial system, according to the DOJ’s latest quarterly update.

Brandon F. Chase, an assistant attorney general, said all of this week’s oral arguments about the list revolve around what exactly that 2021 law means when it refers to “potentially exculpatory” evidence.

“A couple have a few other issues folded in — like staleness of conduct or due process requirements — but the primary issue is the meaning of ‘potentially exculpatory’ under the statute,” he said.

An attorney for the officers, Marc G. Beaudoin, said these cases are also about the state’s duty to protect the due process rights of law enforcement personnel.

“What you’re trying to balance out here is the criminal defendant’s right to any exculpatory information that’s in a personnel file versus a police officer’s property rights in their good name,” Beaudoin said.

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Little information is available publicly about the lawsuits filed pseudonymously under seal in superior courts across the state. But the ACLU intervened last year in at least eight cases and successfully argued redacted filings must be made public when an appeal reaches the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The redacted filings do not identify plaintiffs, but they do shed some light on the nature of the underlying disputes.

The first of the five cases up for oral arguments this week pertains to a Manchester police officer who resigned after his arrest in 2020 for drunken driving. The trial court agreed his off-duty misconduct was irrelevant to the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, but the DOJ appealed, arguing it is statutorily obligated to include his name on the list.

The second case involves a Hanover police officer who was suspended for two weeks for forging a doctor’s signature on a medical clearance form. That incident was removed from his personnel file after he went five years without any further issues, but his name was added to the list in 2021 anyway. He sued, lost, and appealed.

The third case pertains to a Hanover police officer whose name was added to the list in 2021 based on decades-old allegations that he had been dishonest during a job application and interview process with another agency. He maintains he never lied or withheld information intentionally.

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The fourth involves an off-duty Salem police officer who led colleagues on a high-speed chase as a prank. He was given a one-day suspension and later pleaded guilty to a speeding violation. (The redacted court records do not name him, but news reports and a DOJ press release indicate Sergeant Michael Verrocchi reached an agreement in 2021 stemming from the 2012 incident.)

The fifth case relates to a Nashua police officer who responded to a domestic disturbance in 2011 and served a temporary restraining order but did not immediately seek to enforce the terms of the order. The officer has been trying since 2018 to have his name removed from the list.

The four additional cases that will be submitted this month on written briefs, without oral argument, pertain to four New Hampshire State Police troopers. The first trooper falsely claimed he hadn’t received an email attachment; the second concealed a local police chief’s drunken driving more than 20 years ago; the third sent inappropriate text messages to arrestees and lied about it; and the fourth was accused of being untruthful about his status as a trustee for his aunt, according to the redacted court records.

These cases come after a joint lawsuit from three troopers went before the Supreme Court for oral arguments last June. In that case, the troopers padded their activity logs more than 20 years ago to artificially inflate the number of traffic stops they told their bosses they had performed.

Beaudoin argued the only rationale for keeping the names of those three now-retired troopers on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule would be to publicly shame them, which isn’t the purpose of the list. He argued the state’s process for disputing placement on the list is too difficult.

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“Right now, it is virtually impossible to be removed from the list due to the expansive nature of the word ‘potentially,’” he told the justices.

Emily C. Goering, an assistant attorney general, argued the plaintiffs were muddying the waters. The two key questions for courts to consider when reviewing an individual’s placement on the list, she said, are whether the underlying conduct was potentially exculpatory and whether the officer received due process.

“Despite the fact that the conduct might have occurred 20 years ago, it speaks to the petitioners’ general credibility, their recitation of events, their reliability,” she said. “That’s exactly the kind of information that can be beneficial to a criminal defendant or a criminal defense attorney.”

Goering said the DOJ doesn’t have discretion to pick and choose which officers with potentially exculpatory evidence in their personnel files will be included on the list. For the document to be an effective tool, she said, it needs to cast “the widest net.”

One of the five justices who heard those oral arguments, Gary E. Hicks, has since retired. His successor, Melissa B. Countway, will review written briefs and a recording of the oral arguments to participate in the court’s decision, according to an order Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald issued in January.

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MacDonald, who served as attorney general before his 2021 appointment to the court, drafted a memo in 2018 that updated earlier guidance on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule. His memo drew criticism from the ACLU after he and Governor Chris Sununu announced the changes as protecting the due process rights of police.

MacDonald didn’t recuse himself from the oral argument last June and didn’t recuse himself from the cases on Tuesday’s calendar, but he has recused himself from four cases on Thursday’s calendar.

A court spokesperson, Av Harris, said disqualification is determined on a case-by-case basis under the New Hampshire Code of Judicial Conduct, and MacDonald has recused himself from presiding over cases when the attorney general’s office was “substantially involved in the case on appeal” during his time in that office.

“For the other cases, Chief Justice MacDonald is not disqualified and is complying with his constitutional duty to hear the appeals,” Harris added.

Another justice, Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, has recused herself from all the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule cases coming before the court this month based on a situation involving her husband, Geno Marconi, the long-serving director of the New Hampshire Port Authority, who was placed on leave in April for reasons that remain unclear.

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Harris said last week that Hantz Marconi recused herself from cases involving the attorney general’s office based on her understanding that the office was advising the Pease Development Authority, which oversees the Port Authority, with respect to her husband’s work.

A spokesperson for the DOJ said the attorney general’s office advises the Division of Ports and Harbors, but will not comment on attorney-client communications, personnel actions, or judicial recusals.


Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.





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New Hampshire

NH Lottery Pick 3 Day, Pick 3 Evening winning numbers for April 19, 2026

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The New Hampshire Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.

Here’s a look at Sunday, April 19, 2026 results for each game:

Winning Pick 3 numbers from April 19 drawing

Day: 8-6-2

Evening: 8-8-9

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Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from April 19 drawing

Day: 7-6-9-2

Evening: 6-5-8-4

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

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When are the New Hampshire Lottery drawings held?

  • Powerball: 10:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
  • Pick 3, 4: 1:10 p.m. and 6:55 p.m. daily.
  • Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
  • Megabucks Plus: 7:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
  • Lucky for Life: 10:38 p.m. daily.
  • Gimme 5: 6:55 p.m. Monday through Friday.
  • Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. daily.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a New Hampshire managing editor. You can send feedback using this form.



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‘Not cosmetic’: NH lawmaker wants state to cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss – Concord Monitor

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‘Not cosmetic’: NH lawmaker wants state to cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss – Concord Monitor


Two years ago, Sue Prentiss got a sobering reality check at her doctor’s office. The news was blunt: She qualified for bariatric surgery, a procedure for patients whose weight poses life-threatening risks.

She was aware of her weight and had tried everything from high-intensity workouts to weight loss programs and diets. Nothing seemed to help until she started taking GLP-1 medications.

Prentiss said between then and now, she had lost almost 80 pounds. 

But at a $500 out-of-pocket monthly fee, every refill is a financial pinch.

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“I’m just getting by, but I’m so much healthier, and if this can work for me, think about everybody else’s life where this would impact,” said Prentiss, a state senator.

To keep up with the cost, she’s made hard choices like cutting back on retirement contributions and squeezing her budget wherever possible.

Sen. Sue Prentiss Credit: Courtesy

Now, Prentiss is sponsoring Senate Bill 455, which would require the state to provide GLP-1 medications under the state Medicaid plan as a treatment for people with obesity.

As of January, New Hampshire’s Medicaid program has ended coverage for GLP-1 drugs like Saxenda, Wegovy and Zepbound for weight loss. The state still covers the medications when they’re part of a treatment plan for other chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, certain cardiovascular diseases, severe sleep apnea and Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatohepatitis (MASH).

According to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, the state paid managed care organizations $49.5 million to cover GLP-1 medications between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. The policy change in January reduced that cost to $41 million.

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With these drugs gaining popularity, the state estimated that if were to resume covering GLP-1s for weight loss, it would need to spend an additional $24.2 million on top of the $41 million per fiscal year.

Jonathan Ballard, chief medical officer at DHHS, said the agency opposes the bill, which would require Medicaid coverage for anyone with a body mass index above 30 seeking GLP-1 medications specifically for weight loss.

Ballard said the state cannot afford such an expansion when budgets are already tight.

“The department does not have this money today,” he said. “So, living within the realities of our current budget, there will be significant trade-offs. We will have to cut other things that are very important to the health and well-being of New Hampshire to pay for this unless there’s some change.”

GLP-1 drugs carry a steep price tag that puts significant pressure on state budgets, particularly within Medicaid programs. Several states, including California, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, have moved to drop coverage of these medications for weight loss.

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Prentiss initially drafted her legislation with private insurers in mind, but later pivoted to focus on Medicaid to serve more vulnerable populations. She is covered by commercial insurance and said the outcome of the bill will not personally affect her.

Lost coverage

GLP-1 medications mimic a natural hormone in the gut that helps regulate blood sugar, digestion and appetite.

Sarah Finn, section chief for obesity medicine at Dartmouth Health, said she has seen firsthand the impact on her patients after the state dropped Medicaid coverage for weight-loss GLP-1 drugs. 

Without access to these medications, patients experience increased hunger, cravings and persistent “food noise,” as their bodies attempt to return to a higher fat percentage, a process known as metabolic adaptation, she said.

“This is the reality of the state I’m in right now, where I don’t have options except bariatric surgery for my Medicaid patients and a lot of times patients don’t want to do a surgery,” said Finn, at a hearing for the bill on Wednesday. “What I have to tell that patient is there’s nothing I could do to advocate.”

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The Department of Health and Human Services faced a $51 million budget cut when the New Hampshire Legislature passed its biennial budget last year, forcing the department to reduce several services.

While Prentiss acknowledges the financial strain on the department, she wants the state to consider the long-term impact of using GLP-1s to prevent chronic conditions like diabetes, which is largely linked to weight gain and can drive up costs for the state over time.

“By driving down obesity, we can drive down the costs that are related to it,” she said. 

Prentiss remains on GLP-1 medications and said she feels much healthier than before.

She said that after a few months on the drugs, her blood sugar levels and kidney function began trending toward more normal ranges.

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“It’s not cosmetic,” she said. “Obesity is a medical condition.”



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New Hampshire grapples with nuclear waste storage – Valley News

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New Hampshire grapples with nuclear waste storage – Valley News


In New Hampshire and across New England, nuclear energy is in the spotlight. But as plans for the region’s nuclear future are charted, some of the big questions that stirred New Hampshire in the 1980s remain unanswered.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte has called for New Hampshire to embrace new nuclear technology, while state legislators have introduced multiple bills to promote its development. Then, last week, Ayotte joined the rest of New England’s governors in a bipartisan joint statement calling for the region to pursue advanced nuclear technologies while championing its two existing nuclear power plants.

There are timeline and economic questions about the implementation of emerging nuclear technologies. But front-end logistics aside, some say there’s a bigger and enduring problem: How will we safely handle nuclear waste, in New Hampshire and nationwide?

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A caution sign is shown on a road on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on June 2, 2022, in Richland, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

The spent fuel that nuclear reactors spit out is hot and remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires it be safeguarded and separate from nearby populations for at least 10,000 years. The law also requires the United States to come up with a national system to facilitate that at a centralized location, but no plan has yet emerged.

The matter is close at hand in New Hampshire, from the hilly west of the state, where a federal proposal for a deep nuclear waste storage site once threatened to displace residents, to the Seacoast, where spent fuel from the Seabrook Station power plant is generated and stored. To activists, just how we will handle the hazardous material is a hanging question that challenges the wisdom of embarking on a new nuclear era.

“There have been efforts over several decades here in New Hampshire to raise attention to this issue, but, obviously, we haven’t seen much real movement,” said Doug Bogen, executive director of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League.

No stranger to nuclear waste

Three hundred or so million years ago, the long, fiery process that turned New Hampshire into the Granite State began. As magma seeped up into the crust from below and began to cool, seams of grainy, crystalline granite slowly formed.

The immense pockets of stone formed through this process are called plutons. When erosion washes away the sediments and soils around them, plutons can form mountains like the 3,155-foot Mount Cardigan. That peak is the crest of New Hampshire’s largest pluton: an approximately 60-mile long and 12-mile wide stretch of granite running through western New Hampshire.

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In the 1980s, this swath of stone attracted an unexpected visitor: the United States Department of Energy, searching for a site to excavate a long-term storage facility for the nation’s nuclear waste.

Spent fuel remains radioactive for several million years, but its radioactivity decreases with time. The period of “greatest concern,” where levels of radiation are more dangerous to humans, lasts about 10,000 years, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

So, to keep the waste contained over that period, the U.S. government plans to rely on a combination of engineering and favorable geology, according to Scott Burnell, senior public affairs officer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A long-term storage site is envisioned underground, because certain minerals can help shield radiation.

Granite is one such mineral. That’s what drew the department to western New Hampshire in the ’80s, Bogen recalled.

In 1986, the department announced that a 78-square-mile area on the pluton, centered around the town of Hillsborough, was one of a dozen sites across the country under consideration for a potential deep storage facility. Residents understood then that a number of surrounding towns would have been partially or entirely seized by the federal government through eminent domain to make way for the facility. Many were distraught.

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“There weren’t any Yankees that were going to take that,” said Paul Gunter, a founding member of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance.

The “Clams,” as well as the New Hampshire Radioactive Waste Information Network, which Gunter also co-founded; the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League; and other environmental groups, towns, and individuals mobilized quickly. In addition to organizing demonstrations, activists also circulated a warrant article opposing the generation and dumping of nuclear waste in New Hampshire. One hundred and thirty-seven towns ultimately voted to pass it, according to the New Hampshire Municipal Association.

Their opposition was multi-pronged, Gunter said. Organizers had health and safety concerns about the management of nuclear power and highly radioactive waste, including a lack of faith that the radiation would be safely isolated from human populations. They were also concerned about the proliferation of nuclear technology and the security risks that would come along with the transport of highly enriched nuclear fuel through their region. With some pacifist Quaker roots, the Clamshell Alliance also was, and remains, deeply opposed to nuclear weapons, Gunter said. They consider the matters of nuclear power and nuclear weapons inextricable.

News that New Hampshire was under consideration for a possible dump broke in January 1986. Later that year, the New Hampshire Legislature passed a law opposing the siting of such a dump in the state. When the Department of Energy dropped New Hampshire from its list, the storm seemed to have passed.

But while the Clams and others celebrated that, they continued to oppose the issue around which they had first come together: Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. At the time, then-Gov. John H. Sununu said he believed the two matters had to be considered separately. But Gunter said opposing the generation of nuclear waste went hand-in-hand with opposing its storage.

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To this day, he said, the issues are often discussed separately, allowing the threat of nuclear waste to take a backseat in discussions and planning around nuclear energy.

New Hampshire’s high-level radioactive waste act was quietly repealed in 2011, and a subsequent attempt by the late former Rep. Renny Cushing to reintroduce legislation on the topic, opposing the siting of a high-level waste facility in New Hampshire, was defeated in 2020.

Where we are now

Hillsborough’s story has echoes elsewhere across the country. The most progress toward a potential deep storage site occurred at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, where excavation took place, but the site was abandoned amid opposition from the state.

In broad strokes, a similar story has repeated in other instances where a site was proposed, Burnell said. But a spokesperson for the Department of Energy, the agency charged with finding a location, said their search continues nonetheless.

President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a new tack, framing the search for a waste facility along with potential new development as a search for a “nuclear lifecycle innovation campus.” The move comes as Trump has attempted to bolster the U.S. nuclear industry, calling for a surge in nuclear generation and development with multiple executive orders.

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“The Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses Initiative is a new effort to modernize the nation’s full nuclear fuel cycle,” a spokesperson for the department’s Office of Nuclear Energy said in an email. That would involve a federal-state partnership with funding for a nuclear technology facility where many stages of the process could be colocated, they said, naming fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing, and “disposition of waste” as some of what would occur at such a site.

The deadline for states to submit “statements of interest” for hosting sites was April 1, and the spokesperson said “dozens” of responses had been filed. But they declined to say whether New Hampshire was among those, and the New Hampshire Department of Energy did not immediately respond to the same question.

In the meantime

Spent fuel generated at Seabrook Station is initially stored in 40-plus-foot-deep pools of water for preliminary cooling, then moved to steel-and-concrete casks, according to Burnell and NextEra spokesperson Lindsay Robertson. The concrete casks remain on-site on a concrete pad, Burnell said. Until another plan is developed, this is the case for spent fuel generated at reactors across the nation.

The storage facilities in use at Seabrook were tested and built to government standards, intended to withstand “extreme weather,” Robertson said. She declined to say how much spent fuel was generated or stored at Seabrook Station.

Since coming online in 1990, Seabrook Station has generated a significant portion of New England’s power without generating much news. Yet Gunter said his concerns about the station and storage of its spent fuel have not been ameliorated with the passage of time.

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“They’ve been affirmed,” he said.

Gunter has concerns about concrete degradation and wiring at Seabrook Station and other power plants nationwide. Regarding waste, Gunter and Bogen said they worry about sea level rise affecting the storage area; Seabrook Station is located adjacent to tidal marshland. And, lacking a national plan for more long-term storage of nuclear waste, they wonder what will happen to the material currently stored on a temporary basis at Seabrook if no such plan emerges.

Gunter said his concerns about nuclear waste are part and parcel to his overall opposition to nuclear power, including those generators already in use.

“The new reactors are still on paper. The real threat is really in the day-to-day operation of aging nuclear power plants that are way past their shelf life,” he said.

Nuclear power plants are expensive to construct, creating what Bogen called the “opportunity cost” of embracing them at the expense of other sources of power generation. He and Gunter see renewable energy, principally through offshore wind, as safer and faster to deploy, and were disappointed to see politicians renew their focus on nuclear energy.

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“It is coming back in a rebranding, which this industry is very well versed in,” Gunter said. “… Nuclear waste is going to be a persistent hazard over geological spans of time, while the electricity is going to be a fleeting benefit.”

Bogen said he wanted to see more reinforcement of the waste stored at Seabrook in a model called hardened on-site storage. But in terms of dealing with future waste, he and Gunter believe the best solution would be to stop generating it altogether.

“If you find yourself in a hole,” Bogen said, “the first thing you do is stop digging.”

Conversely, the New Hampshire Department of Energy does not see the question of nuclear waste as a barrier to further development in the state, according to an email from department Legislative Liaison Megan Stone. The nuclear roadmap that Ayotte’s March executive order directed the department to craft would include consideration of the “nuclear lifecycle,” including storage and “disposition” of waste, Stone said.

Then, she alluded to the expectation that a federal plan would emerge. “Dry cask storage is a safe and effective method of storing spent nuclear fuel until it is collected by the federal government,” she said.

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