The Chair of the Judiciary Committee of the New York Assembly recently voiced her strong concerns about the state’s death penalty. Although she supported capital punishment earlier, Assemblywoman Helene E. Weinstein spoke about the evolution in her thinking and her particular concerns about the risk of executing the innocent: “It was an evolutionary process. But clearly the advent of DNA evidence and the dramatic number of individuals who have been exonerated and freed from death row in states around the country was something that was building in my mind…. I’m not sure there’s anything as dramatic or as important as the death penalty in terms of my vote. I have certainly looked at legislative proposals I supported or opposed and become convinced there’s room for a change of position. Times and evidence have changed. That is the wonderful thing about a mind: You can change when you hear evidence and make an intelligent choice,” said Weinstein.

Weinstein noted that the costs associated with capital punishment have meant that about $170 million has already been spent on a death penalty that has not resulted in one execution. These funds, she explained, could have been used to support other criminal justice or social programs. She also found the possibility of an unequal justice system that is tainted by racism to be “very disturbing,” and she became convinced that the death penalty does not deter violent crime. “I believed when I voted for it that there was a deterrent effect. I am pretty convinced now that there isn’t. No one ever thinks he’s getting caught, and the likelihood that you’re going to get caught, convicted and receive the death penalty is so remote,” she explained.

Weinstein and other New York Assembly members recently held a series of hearings on the state’s death penalty law. She will now be instrumental in determining the future course of capital punishment in the state. “I think it was impossible for anyone to sit through the testimony and not come away with the conclusion that you cannot draft a death penalty law that does not have the possibility of convicting someone who is innocent. It seems clear to me that from all of what we’ve heard the chance of convicting an innocent individual remains a possibility, and there’s no way to rectify that. People are seeing that the justice system is not infallible,” she observed (New York Times, February 28, 2005) (emphasis added). See New Voices. See also, Innocence, Costs, Deterrence, and Race.