New York’s Capital Defender Office is prepar­ing to close its doors in the wake of a N.Y. Court of Appeals rul­ing that dis­posed of the final appeal of a death sen­tence under the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2004. ​“It is … my inten­tion to close the office as soon as prac­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble,” said Kevin M. Doyle, who has served as Executive Director of the defend­er office estab­lished in 1995. Doyle said there is no point in keep­ing the office open giv­en the sta­tus of the death penal­ty in New York and not­ed that the office will close with­in a mat­ter of months.

At one time the Capital Defender Office had more than 70 staffers and an annu­al bud­get of $14 mil­lion. Now it has a $1.3 mil­lion bud­get and six peo­ple on staff. The remain­ing staffers now have the respon­si­bil­i­ty of review­ing some 3,000 box­es of infor­ma­tion about its cas­es and find­ing a way to prop­er­ly pre­serve priv­i­leged mate­ri­als. Since the office was estab­lished, 10,000 mur­ders have occurred in New York. Prosecutors con­sid­ered bring­ing the death penal­ty in 877 cap­i­tal-eli­gi­ble cas­es, and dis­trict attor­neys filed notice of intent to seek the death penal­ty in 58 cas­es. Juries in only sev­en cas­es ulti­mate­ly returned death sen­tences. No one was exe­cut­ed.

​“In many instances, thanks to the Capital Defender Office, the D.A.s decid­ed not to seek the death penal­ty. The rel­a­tive­ly small amount of mon­ey spent on pre­sen­ta­tion before the D.A.s saved the state a lot of mon­ey,” said attor­ney Ronald Tabak, pres­i­dent of New York Lawyers Against the Death Penalty and spe­cial coun­sel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

The New York Department of Correctional Services will also ben­e­fit from the Court of Appeals rul­ing. The death row at Clinton Correctional Facility will now close, sav­ing the state an esti­mat­ed $300,000 per year.
(New York Law Journal, October 29, 2007). See Representation and Recent Legislative Activities.

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