New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a long time supporter of capital punishment, called for New York’s legislature to step back and more thoroughly review the state’s death penalty system, which has not resulted in any executions and has cost the state more than $170 million in the last decade. Speaker Silver said that his chamber would not follow the lead of the state Senate, which passed an amendment to fix the state’s death penalty law without hearings. “After 10 years of having the death penalty, and very limited … attempts to use it and enforce it, I think we should look at the whole thing.” Silver said. Senator Seymour Lachman, a Democrat from Brooklyn who is not opposed to the death penalty, said: “Why are we rushing? There have been no public hearings, there has been inadequate public review, the [district attorneys] of New York have not been involved, the major religious organizations of the state are opposed to this, and yet we haven’t brought them into the process.” Marguerite Marsh of Guilderland, NY, whose daughter was murdered in the late 1990s, does not want to see her daughter’s killer executed. She said “I hope they take their time and really debate this….I feel more peaceful about it knowing I didn’t put him to death.” (Albany Times Union, Sept. 15, 2004). See New Voices..

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