Andrew Cuomo (pic­tured), who served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001, recent­ly urged New York law­mak­ers to put an end to the death penal­ty. The state is hold­ing hear­ings on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the wake of a N.Y. Court of Appeals deci­sion find­ing the statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ear­li­er this year. In his op-ed in The New York Times, Cuomo not­ed:

The Democrats, who con­trol the Assembly, should make it clear that they will not pass a new death penal­ty law. This will take courage, but it is vital that they do so: We can­not rely much longer on a pro­gres­sive Court of Appeals to inter­cede and pre­vent exe­cu­tions, as has hap­pened since 1995, when the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in New York. (Mr. Pataki had vowed to rein­state the death penal­ty in his cam­paign against my father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.) As judges appoint­ed by Governor Cuomo retire over the next few years, Governor Pataki will install more con­ser­v­a­tive court mem­bers.

More impor­tant, there remains no evi­dence that the death penal­ty is a deter­rent to crime and plen­ty of evi­dence that it is invoked arbi­trar­i­ly — and often mis­tak­en­ly. Last year, 267 inmates nation­wide had their death sen­tences over­turned or removed, accord­ing to the Justice Department. This is the largest num­ber in any year since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of state death-penal­ty laws in a group of states.

Other devel­op­ments since 1995 have also mir­rored the grow­ing doubts about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In 2000, Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican who had sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, imposed a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in his state, cit­ing instances in which death-row inmates were found to be inno­cent. And a report issued in November by the Justice Department reveals that death sen­tences nation­al­ly are now at a 30-year low.

At the same time, cas­es in which DNA evi­dence has estab­lished the inno­cence of peo­ple con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal crimes — along with con­cerns about racial bias in death-penal­ty sen­tenc­ing — have fur­ther under­cut sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment around the coun­try. According to a 2004 Gallup Poll, about half of all Americans say that con­vict­ed mur­der­ers should get the death penal­ty. But just under half instead sup­port a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Public opin­ion has been shift­ing toward this sec­ond option, accord­ing to the Gallup orga­ni­za­tion. The poll also showed that 62 % of Americans believe that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment does not act as a deter­rent, com­pared with 51 per­cent in 1991.

Nor does cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment make sense finan­cial­ly. Many stud­ies show that it is more expen­sive for tax­pay­ers to pur­sue exe­cu­tions than to sen­tence crim­i­nals to life with­out parole. Indeed, New York State has spent at least $160 mil­lion pur­su­ing the death penal­ty since 1995.

Unfortunately, the pre­vail­ing think­ing in Albany is that oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty is ​“polit­i­cal sui­cide.” I dis­agree. While the pub­lic over­all still favors the death penal­ty, pub­lic opin­ion in New York has been shift­ing. A poll con­duct­ed in 2003 by Quinnipiac University shows that a major­i­ty of New York Democrats oppose the death penal­ty and that a major­i­ty of all New Yorkers favor sen­tences of manda­to­ry life with­out parole over exe­cu­tion. Such sen­tences did not exist in the state when the death penal­ty law was passed in 1995.

Leadership can change pub­lic opin­ion, and this shift­ing point of view may become even more pro­nounced if the Assembly Democrats wage an intense debate on the issue, inform­ing peo­ple of the facts — and of the short­com­ings of the bills await­ing action in the Legislature. While oth­er states are insti­tut­ing safe­guards against police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and ensur­ing pro­tec­tion for men­tal­ly ill defen­dants in cap­i­tal cas­es, for exam­ple, these issues are not addressed in the gov­er­nor’s or Senate’s pro­pos­als.

For the pub­lic, the debate can begin as ear­ly as this week. The first of a series of pub­lic hear­ings on the death penal­ty is to be held in New York City on Wednesday.

The Court of Appeals rul­ing that sus­pend­ed the state’s death penal­ty has giv­en New Yorkers a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty, a moment to enact a real reform. It should not be lost.


(New York Times, December 12, 2004) (empha­sis added). See New Voices. See DPIC’s Web page on New York Court of Appeals Ruling. Note: Hearings on the death penal­ty were held in Manhattan on December 15. Additional hear­ings will be held in Albany on January 25.

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