A recent Albany Times Union editorial called on state legislators to abandon attempts to reinstate New York’s death penalty, which the state’s highest court found unconstitutional because the statute’s jury instructions could be coercive. The June 24th New York Court of Appeals ruling in People v. Stephen LaValle spurred proposed legislation to remedy the statute. Some legal critics who have examined the new bill say that it may also be unconstitutional. The editorial echoed this sentiment, noting:


“The wonder is that it took the Court of Appeals nine years to strike down a death penalty law that was written that way… The cost of prosecuting capital crimes during those nine years is estimated to be in the range of $170 million.
…


“The Senate death penalty bill, sponsored by Dale Volker, a Republican from suburban Buffalo, would again legalize (capital punishment) — even retroactively, to people convicted under a law since deemed unconstitutional. Surely he knows that laws applied after the fact are equally unconstitutional.

“The system works already. The most severe punishment permissible, for the worst crimes imaginable, is humane nonetheless.

“Legislators so eager to replace one morally troublesome and constitutionally suspect death penalty law with another ought to think about abandoning their cause, in the name of justice of all things.”

(Albany Times Union, August 12, 2004) See DPIC’s Summay of People v. Stephen LaValle. Read DPIC’s Press Release about the proposed New York bill. See also, Editorials.