NEW YORK (ABP) — A state legislative committee has effectively blocked the reinstatement of New York's death-penalty law.
A committee of the New York State Assembly killed legislation April 12 that would have reinstated the state's capital-punishment statute. The law had been suspended last year, when the state's highest court found its sentencing guidelines unconstitutional.
On an 11-7 vote, the Codes Committee of the Democrat-controlled body rejected the bill, meaning it will not come to the assembly's floor unless death-penalty supporters choose to use an unlikely parliamentary option. Earlier, the Republican-held New York Senate had approved the bill overwhelmingly. The assembly is the lower chamber of New York's legislature.
Ironically, the committee that killed the bill is chaired by a former death-penalty opponent, Assemblyman Joseph Lentol (D-Brooklyn). According to the Washington Post, he said the publicity surrounding several recent cases where DNA evidence helped exonerate men formerly condemned to death for murder convinced him to change his mind.
“The first time I voted for the death penalty, I thought of the law as majestic and that there was very little chance of a mistake,” the newspaper quoted Lentol as saying. “Then you grow up. Look at the DNA evidence — you realize that people can make terrible mistakes.”
The decision makes New York one of several states that have recently restricted their death-penalty laws. Although 37 states have death-penalty statues on the books, governors or courts in a handful have placed moratoriums on its use in recent years.
Nonetheless, New York Gov. George Pataki (R), a death-penalty proponent, decried the decision. “The assembly leadership's 'so what?' attitude toward criminals, whether they're sex offenders, deadly drivers or heinous murderers, is simply shameful,” Pataki said, in a statement released after the vote. “They need to stop protecting criminals and start protecting New Yorkers