Conservatives Call On Legislature to Protect New Yorkers

Ft. Hamilton Station, NY – Almost eleven years ago, Governor George Pataki, kept his campaign promise to New Yorkers and signed the Death Penalty into law. We call upon the New York State Senate and Assembly to address the concerns of the Court of Appeals decision last June and amend the law by passing a death penalty that addresses the reasons the Court of Appeals struck down the law.

“When the Courts of Appeals struck down the death penalty law, New Yorkers were left vulnerable,” said Michael R. Long, Chairman of the State Conservative Party. “Just think, if a terrorist strikes again in New York State, and lives to stand trial, they would not be eligible for the death penalty without a bill being signed into law,” continued Long.

“The Conservative Party issued a legislative memo, today, in support of restoring the death penalty to all of the Members of the Legislature. The Party urges New York State citizens to contact their Legislative Member in each house and ask them to pass this bill that will allow those who commit heinous crimes, crimes against our citizens or an Osama bin Laden want-to-be the justice they deserve,” Long stated. Following is the legislative memo:

Some crimes are so heinous the only way to be certain that society, as a whole, is protected is to allow the state to impose the death penalty.

In 1995, the Members of the Legislature recognized that the death penalty must be restored and voted to do so. In the Assembly, the vote was 94-52, in the Senate 38-19; both houses passed the bill by wide margins. Yet, the Court of Appeals ruled in June of 2004, that the Due Process Clause of the NYS Constitution required that the jury be instructed as to the consequences of a deadlock in their sentencing deliberations, thereby rendering the death penalty invalid.

This legislation (S. 2727) includes the language, originally proposed in 1995 by the State Assembly, to remedy the concerns of the Court of Appeals.

Under current law, the Judges were improperly required to instruct jurors in capital cases that if they deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict during the penalty phase, the Judge would impose a sentence that would allow the defendant to be paroled after a minimum 20-25 years served. The Court believed that if jurors were advised of this, they would choose the death penalty rather than let a defendant be a scourge on society again.

This bill seeks to remedy the Court of Appeals concern by mandating a life sentence without possibility of parole if the jurors are deadlocked. When this bill is adopted, a juror who, in good conscience, cannot cast a vote for the death penalty will not be coerced into doing so because they will know there is an alternative.

All New Yorkers need to known that people who commit heinous crimes will face the death penalty and not be protected by an overzealous Court that was under the impression that jurors could be coerced into choosing the death penalty.

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