New York’s death penal­ty remains in abeyance, hav­ing been found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the state’s high court. A recent N.Y. Newsday edi­to­r­i­al called on law­mak­ers to care­ful­ly exam­ine the fun­da­men­tal prob­lems with the death penal­ty before con­sid­er­ing any rein­state­ment leg­is­la­tion. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed:


On the steps of New York City Hall on Thursday, a coali­tion of death penal­ty oppo­nents — promi­nent­ly includ­ing City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and for­mer guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Andrew Cuomo — called for a ​“leg­isla­tive mora­to­ri­um” before the state tries to repair the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law struck down by the Court of Appeals.

As a result of that deci­sion in June, New York now has no valid death penal­ty. That’s fine. The penal­ty is arbi­trary, racist and inef­fec­tu­al in deter­ring crime. It’s also prone to fatal error. In 2000, Illinois insti­tut­ed a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty that it had re-enact­ed in 1977, because courts had gone on to free 13 peo­ple wrong­ly sen­tenced to die.

… [I]t’s all the more impor­tant that leg­is­la­tors lis­ten to New Yorkers for a Sensible Criminal Justice Policy and spend ample time study­ing and think­ing before re-enact­ing. (Newsday, October 9, 2004) (empha­sis added).

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