New York

History of the Death Penalty

New York’s hiso­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment goes back to colo­nial times, with the sec­ond most exe­cu­tions of any state from 1608 to 1972, after Virginia. Before the inven­tion of the elec­tric chair most exe­cu­tions were car­ried out by hang­ing, although oth­er meth­ods includ­ing burn­ing at the stake, death by fir­ing squad, and even the break­ing wheel were used. Although there were pris­on­ers on New York’s death row until 2007, no exe­cu­tion has tak­en place since that of Eddie Mays in 1963.

Famous Cases

Perhaps the most notable exe­cu­tion to take place in the State of New York was that of William Kemmler in 1890. Convicted of mur­der­ing his com­mon law wife with a hatch­et, Kemmler was the first man exe­cut­ed with the new­ly devel­oped electric chair.

Previous exe­cu­tions had been car­ried out almost exclu­sive­ly by hang­ing. The State of New York had assigned a com­mit­tee to devel­op a more humane method of exe­cu­tion. The con­cept of exe­cu­tion by means of elec­tric­i­ty mate­ri­al­ized after a den­tist wit­nessed an intox­i­cat­ed man die quick­ly and pain­less­ly (in his esti­ma­tion) after walk­ing into exposed pow­er lines. After sev­er­al months of devel­op­ment, as well as a tri­al exe­cu­tion on a horse, it was deter­mined that Kemmler would be the first to be exe­cut­ed in the elec­tric chair. Kemmler’s appeal of the new method reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld elec­tro­cu­tion as a con­sti­tu­tion­al form of punishment.

On August 6^th, 1890, Kemmler was strapped into the elec­tric chair at the Auburn State Prison in front of a small group of wit­ness­es. The switch was thrown, and a 1000 volt cur­rent passed through Kemmler’s body for 17 sec­onds after which he was declared dead. However, sev­er­al wit­ness­es not­ed that Kemmler was still breath­ing and heard Kemmler groan­ing soft­ly. The switch was thrown again using a high­er volt­age. Witnesses report­ed an awful smell of burn­ing flesh and singe­ing hair, and blood ves­sels beneath Kemmlers skin burst and bled. Despite the grue­some accounts of the elec­tr­cu­tion, the elec­tric chair soon became the dom­i­nant form of exe­cu­tion in the United States until its replace­ment with lethal injection.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

The death penal­ty has been abol­ished and rein­stat­ed sev­er­al times in New York. New York’s death penal­ty was acci­den­tal­ly abol­ished in 1860, when the leg­is­la­ture passed mea­sures that repealed hang­ing as a method of exe­cu­tion but pro­vid­ed no oth­er means of car­ry­ing out a death sen­tence. The mis­take was cor­rect­ed a year lat­er in 1861.

Lewis E. Lawes, the war­den of Sing Sing Prison from 1920 – 1941, advo­cat­ed for the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Although he super­vised 303 exe­cu­tions, Lawes believed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was inequitable and not a deter­rent. He not­ed that bare­ly 1 in 80 killers was exe­cut­ed, and said ​“Did you ever see a rich man go the whole route through to the Death House? I don’t know of any.”

In 1967, a com­pro­mise law was passed allow­ing for a very lim­it­ed death penal­ty. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court inval­i­dat­ed all death penal­ty statutes in the coun­try in Furman v. Georgia. The New York leg­is­la­ture rewrote the state’s statute in 1973, pro­vid­ing for a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for mur­der­ing a police offi­cer, a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, or a mur­der in prison by an inmate serv­ing a life sen­tence. In 1977, New York’s high court effec­tive­ly struck down the death penal­ty for the mur­der of a police offi­cer or a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, and a 1984 rul­ing struck down cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for mur­ders com­mit­ted by inmates serv­ing life sen­tences, effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing New York’s death penal­ty. From 1978 until 1994, mea­sures repeat­ed­ly passed both hous­es of New York’s state leg­is­la­ture that would have expand­ed or rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, only to be vetoed by gov­er­nors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo.

In 1995 new­ly-elect­ed Governor George Pataki ful­filled a cam­paign promise and signed leg­is­la­tion rein­stat­ing the death penal­ty in New York, des­ig­nat­ing lethal injec­tion as the new method of exe­cu­tion. In 2004, that statute was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the New York Court of Appeals, and in 2007 the last remain­ing death sen­tence was reduced to life, leav­ing New York with a vacant death row and no viable death penal­ty laws. In 2008 Governor David Paterson issued an exec­u­tive order requir­ing the removal of all exe­cu­tion equip­ment from state facilities.

Resources

• The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
• New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
• District Attorneys Association of the State of New York
• New York State Defenders Association
• Victims’ ser­vices