Good news from Albany for once. The New York Times reports that it appears improbable that the death penalty will be re-instituted in New York. State-sponsored murder, euphemistically known as capital punishment, was brought back in New York in 1995 after the election of Republican Gov. George Pataki ended over two decades of anti-death penalty politicians in the chief executive's chair. The law, however, was struck down by a state court last year on technical grounds.
Some politicians wanted to modify the law governing state-sponsored murder to meet the court's objections. This, even though no one had actually been executed by the state since the 1995 re-introduction. Since 1995, an estimated $175 million or more has been spent on death penalty cases. Juries have sentenced only seven men to death and five of those seven convictions were reversed by the state's highest court, while the other two are still being appealed.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a death penalty supporter, added that he had growing doubts about the practical need, expense and infallibility of the death penalty, especially since defendants can now be sentenced to life without parole, which is clearly a more legitimate alternative.
Silver appears likely to block a full floor vote on getting New York state back into the vigilante business, making it one of the few times in recent memory's that the legislature's anti-democratic conduct was used for Good, rather than Evil.
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