New York’s dor­mant death penal­ty law fails to meet the min­i­mum stan­dards rec­om­mend­ed to ensure accu­ra­cy and fair­ness, accord­ing to a new report issued by the Committee on Capital Punishment of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Based on a com­par­i­son of New York’s exist­ing statute to stan­dards estab­lished by expert com­mit­tees in Illinois and Massachusetts, the Committee urged New York law­mak­ers to thor­ough­ly ana­lyze the state’s statute in light of emerg­ing infor­ma­tion about the high poten­tial for wrong­ful con­vic­tion and unfair­ness in death penal­ty cas­es. The report par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­es on issues of guilt and inno­cence, eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty, and jury selec­tion, but notes that addi­tion­al prob­lems exist and should be addressed if law­mak­ers decide to attempt a fix to the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law. ​“In the years since 1995, when New York rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, it has become appar­ent that the death penal­ty does not func­tion prop­er­ly,” the report states. Among the pro­ce­dures exam­ined in the report are infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny rules, video­tap­ing of inter­ro­ga­tions, inde­pen­dent review of sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence, a height­ened bur­den of proof, and the dis­cre­tion of judges to over­turn death sen­tences they believe are unwar­rant­ed. (Empire State Injustice: Based Upon a Decade of New Information, A Preliminary Evaluation of How New York’s Death Penalty System Fails to Meet Standards for Accuracy and Fairness, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, January 2005). Read the Report (PDF Format). See also, Resources.

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