death penalty news April 13, 2005
NEW YORK: Capital punishment, 1995-2005 New York's death penalty law died yesterday in Albany at age 10. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver ended its short and troubled life without pomp. Time of death was 11:50 a.m. Survivors include four murderers on Death Row. The capital punishment statute was born March 7, 1995, the child of three fathers: Silver, Gov. Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. They had labored for years to produce this offspring, and they proudly accepted congratulations, especially from law enforcement officials, at a time when crime was rampant. Pataki in particular counted it one of his finest achievements. Alas, he was mistaken. Among the death law's provisions was one requiring that when capital-case jurors deadlocked between execution and life without parole, the killer had to be imprisoned and made eligible for parole in 25 years. The possibility that jurors could opt for death just to keep a murderer from ever being freed gave the state Court of Appeals just the opening it needed to rule the statute unconstitutional, thus mortally wounding it. But that was only the final blow. The Capital Defender Office had been tormenting the law from the beginning. And it faced consistent rejection from prosecutors as well, prime among them Robert Morgenthau in Manhattan and Robert Johnson in the Bronx, both of whom refused ever to apply it, no matter how heinous was the criminal in the dock. It was also battered by Judith Kaye and her Court of Appeals colleagues, until last summer's devastating ruling left it at last on life support. Pataki and Bruno attempted to repair the damage, but Silver turned his back, in the end allowing a mere legislative committee to pronounce the law dead. There will be no funeral. (source: Editorial, New York Daily News)
