Although New York’s death penal­ty was over­turned by the state’s high court in 2004, and the leg­is­la­ture has not rein­stat­ed it, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has sought the death penal­ty more in New York than in any oth­er state except Virginia. However, none of the fed­er­al cas­es has result­ed in a death sen­tence.

Since the fed­er­al death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1988, thir­ty-sev­en fed­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es have been autho­rized in New York, com­pared with 50 in Virginia and 385 nation­wide, accord­ing to data from the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project. Of the 37 cap­i­tal cas­es in New York, 14 were resolved before going to tri­al. Of the 13 cas­es that have gone to tri­al, none result­ed in a death sen­tence. Instead, defen­dants were sen­tenced to life without parole.

An addi­tion­al 52 defen­dants have been charged with cap­i­tal-eli­gi­ble crimes in New York, and are await­ing a deter­mi­na­tion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as to whether the death penal­ty will be sought. New York has more poten­tial fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es in the pipeline than any oth­er state.

According to data pro­vid­ed by the death penal­ty project, the Justice Department in Washington may be using a more aggres­sive approach towards seek­ing the death penal­ty in New York, not­ing that in many of the cas­es there was no rec­om­men­da­tion from the local U.S. attor­ney to seek a death sen­tence. Instead, the deci­sion was sole­ly that of the Attorney General.

On a nation­al lev­el, 161 cap­i­tal cas­es have gone to tri­al, with 15 result­ing in ver­dicts of not guilty on all cap­i­tal counts in the case. The remain­ing 146 cas­es have result­ed in 95 life sen­tences and 51 death sen­tences (or 32% of the cas­es that have gone to tri­al).

Almost all (35 out of 37, or 95%) of the defen­dants in the fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es in New York are mem­bers of minori­ties. On a nation­al lev­el in fed­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es, 73% of the defen­dants (281 out of 385) are mem­bers of minori­ties.

(New York Law Journal, August 2, 2006). See also Federal Death Penalty and Arbitrariness.

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