Eight years after the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in New York, the num­ber of death sen­tences sought by pros­e­cu­tors has sharply declined. According to the New York Capital Defender Office, the num­ber of death penal­ty notices filed has dropped from a record-high 14 in 1998 to just two so far in 2003. Howard R. Relin, a long-time dis­trict attor­ney in Rochester and death penal­ty sup­port­er, not­ed: ​“D.A.‘s are being more and more care­ful in mak­ing that deter­mi­na­tion. There’s a sense of real­ism that has set in to pros­e­cu­tors around New York State, as a result of the jury ver­dicts we have seen through­out the state.” Richard Brown, the Queens dis­trict attor­ney, added that pros­e­cu­tors have come to under­stand that the suf­fer­ing of mur­der vic­tims’ rel­a­tives is often pro­longed in death penal­ty cas­es because of the years of legal war­fare and that cap­i­tal cas­es are a drain on pros­e­cu­tors’ time and bud­gets. He stat­ed, ​“Particularly at a time of fis­cal cri­sis, it is very dif­fi­cult to jus­ti­fy tak­ing expe­ri­enced pros­e­cu­tors away from han­dling oth­er vio­lent felonies.” Death sen­tenc­ing has also been declin­ing in oth­er states around the coun­try. (New York Times, September 21, 2003) See New York and Life Without Parole.

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