NEW VOICES: Broad Opposition to Reinstating New York’s Death Penalty

Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney joined a lengthy list of high-profile New Yorkers testifying that they oppose reinstatement of New York’s death penalty. During a legislative hearing in Albany, Carney testified that New York would be best served by abandoning capital punishment and sentencing offenders to life without the possibility of parole. He cited the high costs of the death penalty and the special protections that would need to be put in place. (Albany Times-Union, February 9, 2005).

Lawmakers have held five days (concluding Feb. 11, 2005) of hearings to gather opinion on what should be done with the state’s death penalty. Among the dozens of individuals who have offered expert testimony opposing reinstatement of capital punishment are the following:

• Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney
• Andrew Cuomo, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Bill Kurtis, Court TV and A&E Anchor
• The Honorable Gerald Kogan, Former Florida Chief Justice
• Thomas Sullivan, Co-Chair of the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment
• Kate Lowenstein, daughter of slain New York Congressman Allard Lowernstein
• U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy, wife of a murder victim killed during the Long Island Railroad shooting
  
• Bettina B. Plevan, President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York
• Anthony Miranda, retired New York Police Department Sergeant and Representative of the National Latino Officers Association
• The Most Rev. Howard J. Hubbard, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany