On the 2024 Hillsborough County Attorney's Race

The candidate filing period for New Hampshire elections opened on June 5 and the incumbent prosecutor for the Granite State's most populous county is seeking a third term in office. Decision time.

Dear Friends,

When our family moved from Phoenix, Arizona to Manchester, New Hampshire in late 2019, one of the first big news stories we read about was a controversy in the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office¹ over a plea agreement in a serious felony case.

A senior prosecutor in the office had negotiated a plea disposition with the defendant that was more lenient than the police chief thought was appropriate. The chief called the elected prosecutor with his complaint as well as going to the media to criticize the County Attorney’s office. The Attorney General called for the elected prosecutor’s resignation; when the request was refused, the Attorney General took over supervision of the office for a period of time.² The elected prosecutor fired the senior prosecutor who approved the plea disposition, leading to a wrongful termination lawsuit that cost county taxpayers a significant amount of money.

It was not a good situation.

So I stepped up to run for County Attorney in 2020, appearing on the ballot as a Libertarian against the incumbent Democrat and a Republican retired judge.³ During the race, I was able to meet with elected officials, police chiefs, public defenders, and regular citizens to hear their concerns and priorities. Many of them had never heard from either the incumbent or the other challenger.

When the votes were counted in November, the Republican retired judge won, the incumbent Democrat came in second, and only 6% of the voters took a chance on the former public defender running as a Libertarian. The winner declared in January 2021 that he was “ready to hit the ground running.” By February, four attorneys were fired and four hired.⁴ Change was happening and people were optimistic.

It didn’t last.

The office was missing court deadlines and not responding to court orders repeatedly starting in March and continuing until October, when a judge issued sanctions against the elected prosecutor, including a $1,000 fine. It was clear that the systemic problems in the office were not being effectively addressed.

In June 2022, I filed again to run for Hillsborough County Attorney, anticipating a three-way race between the Republican incumbent, the Democratic challenger, and myself running as a Libertarian. But no Democrat filed to run.⁵

With the help of volunteers, donors, and supporters, we were able to win the Democratic primary in September as a write-in candidate, receiving ten times as many write-in votes as the incumbent Republican.

When the general election ballot was printed, my name appeared twice, while the incumbent only appeared once.⁶ We had engaged in forums and debates, had endorsements and signs, and felt optimistic about winning. But we came up short, with a little over 45% of the voters choosing change over the status quo.

It was a tough loss. Our team did an after action report, I sent a bunch of thank you notes, and our family took a break from the stress of campaigning.

Then I got to work.

I’ve been meeting with law enforcement officers, city and town officials, and community members to find out what the real problems are with how criminal justice works (or doesn’t) in the city and county our family calls home.

I’ve attended meetings of the Hillsborough County Commission to call for a pretrial services program to provide information to courts, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that they can use in determining whether someone should be released before their case goes to trial, as well as providing support to the accused to make sure they make court appearances and avoid further offenses while a case is pending.

In my capacity as an attorney, I’ve helped clients who have old convictions get their records annulled under New Hampshire law, so they can “uncheck the box” on employment forms that ask about prior convictions, opening up housing and job opportunities.

I’ve met with housing advocates, nonprofit executives, and municipal employees to learn what the root causes of our housing crisis are. Unhoused people are much more likely to have police contact and criminal justice system involvement, which leads to the case backlogs that the incumbent prosecutor has not been able to address.

Some people run for office because they want a job or a title. That’s not why I ran.

Today marks fifteen years of marriage to my wonderful wife Valerie, without whom I could have done none of this.

I ran because every family in Hillsborough County deserves to have an elected prosecutor who will seek justice efficiently and effectively, who will not just work to prosecute crime, but to reduce the root causes of crime. I ran because our community won’t thrive if people don’t feel safe, if people don’t feel like they are getting justice. I ran because I believe that when you see a problem you can help fix, you should help to fix it.

The incumbent has had four years to fix the problems in the elected prosecutor’s office, but they are not fixed.

Someone needs to step up to repair what isn’t working, improve what is working, and pursue innovative solutions to make our criminal justice system better.

We need change.

Yours truly,

Nick

1. County Attorney is the title of elected prosecutor in New Hampshire, often known as District Attorney or State’s Attorney in other jurisdictions.

2. The Attorney General at the time has since been appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

3. My opinion is that prosecutor’s races should not be partisan, because justice should not be partisan.

4. In an office of fewer than 20 attorneys, that’s a lot of turnover.

5. In New Hampshire, a person can win a primary election in a party where nobody filed to run ahead of time by receiving enough write-in votes, even if the person is not registered with that political party. This results in candidates being on “both sides of the ballot,” as both a Republican and a Democrat in November.

6. He appeared on the ballot in the Republican column, I appeared in the Libertarian column and the Democratic column.