Lawyers of suspect in officer's slaying want trial moved

MICHAEL ADDISON

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Lawyers for Michael Addison said that public outrage toward him and adoration for the Manchester police officer he is accused of killing show he can't get a fair trial in Manchester.

Addison's public defenders have asked the court to move his capital murder trial out of the city.

Lawyer David Rothstein wrote the court that there is evidence of community hostility against Addison that is unparalleled.

Addison, 28, is charged with killing Officer Michael Briggs in October 2006. He was captured in Boston.

In their 28-page request for a change of venue, Addison's lawyers cited editorials and news stories in the New Hampshire Union Leader and Concord Monitor, and dozens of reader comments that praised Briggs and denounced Addison.

"I want to be the one who administers the lethal injection," wrote state Senator Jack Barnes in a letter to the Monitor. The lawyers said at least 30 articles cite Addison's criminal past, which include stabbing a teenager and aiming a gun at a classmate when he was in high school.

Addison's lawyers said that choosing a jury from the people who read the material is "fundamentally unfair." The readers see themselves as victims of a crime that affected the whole community, not as impartial jurors, the lawyers said.

And, the lawyers argue, the potential jurors would be the same people who donated money to Briggs's wife and sons, bought pins with his badge number, and watched his 3.5-mile funeral procession.

Addison's lawyers have also asked that the trial, scheduled for Sept. 2, be postponed for at least 90 days. They said they have not had enough time to prepare, because they have been too busy defending him in three other cases.

Addison's lawyers said earlier that their client could not get a fair trial because there are not enough members of minority groups in the jury pool. Hillsborough County has the most racially mixed population in New Hampshire.