Capital punishment in New York

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Sing Sing correctional facility was where the execution chamber for New York was located prior to the 1972 abolition. Sing Sing.jpg
Sing Sing correctional facility was where the execution chamber for New York was located prior to the 1972 abolition.

Capital punishment was de facto abolished in the State of New York in 2004 after the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the state) declared that the statute as written was not valid under the state's constitution. [1] However certain crimes occurring in the state that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government are subject to the federal death penalty. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Furman v. Georgia declared existing capital punishment statutes unconstitutional, abolishing the practice of capital punishment in the United States. In 1976, the same court's ruling in Gregg v. Georgia allowed states to reinstate the death penalty. In 1995, Governor George Pataki signed a new statute into law which returned the death penalty in New York by authorizing lethal injection for execution.

Prior to Furman v. Georgia, New York was the first state to adopt the electric chair as a method of execution, which replaced hanging. The last New York execution during that time had occurred in 1963, when Eddie Lee Mays was electrocuted at Sing Sing prison. There were no executions in New York after the reinstatement of the death penalty [5] before it was abolished again on June 24, 2004, when the state's highest court ruled in People v. LaValle that the state's death penalty statute violated the state constitution. [6] New York has had no valid statute relating to capital punishment since then.

Subsequent legislative attempts at fixing or replacing the statute have failed, [7] and in July 2008 Governor David Paterson issued an executive order disestablishing New York's death row. [3]

Colonial period and statehood

During various periods from the 1600s onward, New York law prescribed the death penalty for crimes such as sodomy, adultery, counterfeiting, perjury, and attempted rape or murder by slaves. [8] In 1796, New York abolished the death penalty for crimes other than murder and treason, but arson was made a capital crime in 1808. [8]

Temporary abolition

In 1860, the New York Legislature passed a bill which effectively, though unintentionally, abolished capital punishment in the state, by repealing hanging as a method of execution without prescribing an alternative method. The bill was signed by Governor Edwin D. Morgan in April 1860. The New York Court of Appeals ruled the statute unconstitutional, in part, as an ex post facto law. Governor Morgan signed legislation to restore capital punishment in 1861, and again in 1862 to fully repeal the earlier statute. [9]

Introduction of the electric chair

William Kemmler was the first individual to be executed by electric chair, on August 6, 1890. WmKmlr-execution.gif
William Kemmler was the first individual to be executed by electric chair, on August 6, 1890.
"Old Sparky" at Sing Sing Singchair.jpg
“Old Sparky” at Sing Sing

In 1886, newly elected New York State governor David B. Hill set up a three-member "New York Commission" to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging. The commission included the human rights advocate and reformer Elbridge Thomas Gerry, New York lawyer and politician Matthew Hale, and Buffalo dentist and experimenter Alfred P. Southwick. [10] Southwick had been developing an idea since the early 1880s of using electric current as a means of capital punishment after hearing about how relatively painlessly and quickly a drunken man died due to grabbing the energized parts on a generator. Southwick had published this proposal first in 1882 and, being a dentist accustomed to performing procedures on subjects in chairs, used the form of a chair in his designs, which became known as the "electric chair". [11] The commission reviewed ancient and modern forms of execution including lethal injection but finally settled on electrocution in 1888. A bill making electrocution New York State's form of execution passed the legislature and was signed by Governor Hill on June 4, 1888, set to go into effect on January 1, 1889.

The first individual to be executed in the electric chair was William Kemmler, on August 6, 1890. Current was passed through Kemmler for 17 seconds and he was declared dead, but witnesses noticed he was still breathing, and the current was turned back on. From start to finish, the execution took eight minutes. During the execution, blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled, and some witness reported that Kemmler's body caught fire.

Statistics

From 1890 to 1963, 695 people were executed in New York. The first was William Kemmler on August 6, 1890, and the last was Eddie Lee Mays on August 15, 1963. Kemmler was the first person in the world known to be executed in an electric chair. Except for four individuals, all of the people executed during this period were convicted of murder. The four exceptions were Joseph Sacoda and Demetrius Gula, who were convicted of kidnapping and executed January 11, 1940, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage and executed June 19, 1953 in Sing Sing by the federal government, not the state of New York. [12]

Famous cases

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius and Ethel Rosenberg NYWTS.jpg
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

In 1872 and 1873, Erie County Sheriff Grover Cleveland carried out himself two executions by hanging to avoid paying someone else as executioner. [13] [14] [15] Grover Cleveland was later elected President of the United States, serving two non-consecutive terms from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.

In 1901, Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted under state law for the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley. Only after John Kennedy's death in 1963 was it made a federal crime to murder the President of the United States.

Ruth Snyder was one of the very few women executed at Sing Sing. She was put to death in the electric chair in 1928 for the murder of her husband. Infamously, a photographer from the Chicago Tribune smuggled a small camera into the execution chamber and snapped a picture of Snyder after the executioner pulled the switch; it was the first known photograph of an electric chair execution, and it remains one of the few known photographs of such.

A lesser known but contemporaneously notorious case dates to January 1936, when serial killer Albert Fish was put to death for the cannibal murder of 10-year-old Grace Budd. He was confirmed to have committed at least three murders, but he is suspected of being involved in nine and, prior to his execution, he claimed to have murdered over 100 people. At age 65, Fish was one of the oldest people ever executed at Sing Sing, tied with Michael Rossi, a 65-year-old man who was executed in Sing Sing's electric chair on June 29, 1922. The oldest person to be executed in any New York electric chair was Charles Bonier, who was 75 when he died in Auburn's electric chair on July 31, 1907.

Other notable cases are those of seven members of Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc. between 1941 and 1944, including Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the only mob boss to ever receive the death penalty after being convicted of murder, and some of his associates, including Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss and Louis Capone, who were executed on March 4, 1944, the same night as Buchalter.

Another notable case was that of the "Lonely Hearts Killers" Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who were convicted of three murders but are believed to have killed as many as 20 women between 1947 and 1949. They were executed together on March 8, 1951.

Arguably the most famous execution in state history (although occurring under federal, and not under New York state law) occurred in June 1953, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death at Sing Sing after their conviction on federal espionage charges for passing secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. Ethel’s conviction and severely botched execution remains controversial as David Greenglass, Ethel’s brother and a key witness for the prosecution, later admitted to giving perjured testimony against Ethel to shield his wife from criminal liability. [16] In 2015, eleven members of the New York City Council declared that "the government wrongfully executed Ethel Rosenberg," and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer officially recognized "the injustice suffered by Ethel Rosenberg and her family" and designated September 28 as the "Ethel Rosenberg Day of Justice in the Borough of Manhattan." [17]

1965 quasi-abolition

In 1965, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican who supported capital punishment, signed legislation which abolished the death penalty except for cases involving the murder of a peace officer or when the offender is a life convict. It was extended in 1971 to murder of a correctional employee. [18]

In the July 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia , the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the existing death penalty procedures across the United States. The moratorium lasted until 1976 when the Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that states could resume capital punishment under reworked statutes.

Following the ruling of Gregg v. Georgia, New York was one of the few states that did not immediately return the death penalty following the ruling. There was legislation to return the death penalty as a sanction that passed the Assembly and Senate, but was vetoed by Democratic Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. [19] [20] [21]

Capital punishment for murder committed by a life convict was still provided by the law of the time, under which serial killer Lemuel Smith was sentenced to death in 1983 for murdering a female prison officer, and the electric chair was maintained for a possible execution. This statute was nullified in 1984.

In 1989, Donald Trump designed an ad calling to bring back the death penalty in New York during the Central Park jogger case, four black men and one Hispanic male accused of the rape and attempted murder of a white female jogger in Central Park. They were exonerated in 2002 after serving years in prison. [22]

1995 reinstatement

Capital punishment was reinstated in New York in 1995 for a wide-range of aggravating factors, when Republican Governor George Pataki signed a new statute into law, which provided for execution by lethal injection. However, there were no executions before capital punishment was abolished in 2004, when the New York Court of Appeals declared the sentencing statute inconsistent with the constitution of New York.

On January 11, 1995, convicted killer Thomas J. Grasso, who had been sentenced to death by Oklahoma but was serving a sentence of 20 years to life in New York, was extradited from New York to Oklahoma to face execution. [23] Grasso was transported to Buffalo Niagara International Airport and flown to Oklahoma. He was executed on March 20, 1995. [24] The extradition was previously blocked by Pataki's predecessor Mario Cuomo who opposed capital punishment.

In 1998, New York State allowed defendants who are guilty of murder that carries a sanction of death to plead guilty in a plea bargain to receive life without parole and avoid the death penalty which could only be imposed after a criminal trial. Critics of this law argue it violates the defendant's fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. In 2001, the New York Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional, citing that defendants could be coerced by law enforcement into pleading guilty for a murder they did not commit. [25]

Statute ruled unconstitutional

On June 24, 2004, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, held 4–3 in People v. LaValle that the state's death penalty statute violated the New York Constitution, because in case of a deadlocked jury the judge could impose a sentence lesser than life without parole, so jurors would be "coerced" to vote for death solely to prevent the convict from being paroled. [6] Governor Pataki criticized the ruling and called for a quick legislative fix.

Between December 2004 and February 2005, public hearings were held in Manhattan and Albany. New York Law School professor and death penalty advocate Robert Blecker advocated strongly in favor of reinstatement, while Manhattan local prosecutor Robert M. Morgenthau strongly opposed reinstatement, an issue which had political significance during the subsequent district attorney elections. [26] [27] [28] [29]

In 2005, supporters of the death penalty in the New York Legislature passed a bill restoring New York's death penalty in the Republican-controlled State Senate, [30] [31] [32] but the legislation was voted down by a legislative committee in the Democratic-controlled New York Assembly, and was not enacted into law. [7]

In 2007, the New York Court of Appeals decided in People v. Taylor that the statute defect could not be corrected by a judge instruction to the jury that he would impose life without parole. This lead to the commutation of the last of the seven death sentences that were imposed under the 1995 statute. [3]

In 2008, the State Senate again passed legislation that would have established the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers, but the Assembly did not act on the legislation. [33]

Death row disestablished

In July 2008, Governor David Paterson issued an executive order requiring the disestablishment of death row and the closure of the state's execution chamber at Green Haven Correctional Facility. [34]

Even though the current death penalty statute was ruled unconstitutional and left null and unenforceable by the New York State Court of Appeals in 2004, it has never been repealed and is still on the books. [35]

Federal cases

There is currently no inmate on federal death row sentenced for a crime committed in the state of New York.

In 2007, Ronell Wilson was sentenced to death for the murder of two undercover New York City police officers in Staten Island, but the sentence was later reversed as result of a ruling from the Second Circuit appeal court.

In 2023, federal prosecutors pursued the death penalty against Sayfullo Saipov for the 2017 New York City truck attack which killed eight people. Saipov was ultimately sentenced to life after the jury deadlocked on sentencing.

The defendants of the 9/11 attacks incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay were indicted before a military commission sitting there. Congressional opposition led the Obama administration to drop its original plan to have them tried by a Manhattan civilian jury. A 2024 plea agreement in exchange of a life sentence is currently challenged in court by the Defense Department. [36]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Glaberson, William (June 25, 2004). "4-3 Ruling Effectively Halts Death Penalty in New York". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ Rob Gallagher (October 25, 2005). "New York Executions". Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved April 9, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 Scott, Brendan (July 24, 2008). "GOV PULLS SWITCH ON DEATH CELL". New York Post . Archived from the original on March 13, 2009. Retrieved April 9, 2009.
  4. ↑ Powell, Michael (April 13, 2005). "In N.Y., Lawmakers Vote Not to Reinstate Capital Punishment". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 11, 2008.
  5. ↑ Dao, James (March 8, 1995). "Death Penalty in New York Reinstated After 18 Years; Pataki Sees Justice Served". The New York Times.
  6. 1 2 Glaberson, William (June 25, 2004). "4-3 Ruling Effectively Halts Death Penalty in New York". The New York Times . Retrieved December 31, 2009. New York State's highest court ruled yesterday that a central provision of the state's capital punishment law violated the State Constitution. Lawyers said the ruling would probably spare the lives of the four men now on death row and effectively suspend the death penalty in New York.
  7. 1 2 Powell, Michael (April 13, 2005). "In N.Y., Lawmakers Vote Not to Reinstate Capital Punishment". The Washington Post . Retrieved December 31, 2009. NEW YORK, April 12 -- New York's death penalty is no more. A legislative committee tossed out a bill Tuesday aimed at reinstating the state's death penalty, which a court had suspended last year. It was an extraordinary bit of drama, not least because a top Democrat who once strongly supported capital punishment led the fight to end it.
  8. 1 2 Eisenstadt, Peter; Moss, Laura-Eve, eds. (2005). "Agriculture". The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press. p. 261. ISBN   081560808X. LCCN   2005001032.
  9. ↑ "WHEN NEW YORK HAD NO DEATH PENALTY; Punishment for Murder Under Law of 1860 Curiously Limited to a Year in Prison". The New York Times . January 21, 1912. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
  10. ↑ "Southwick, Alfred Porter (1826-1898), mechanic, dentist, and proponent of the electric chair as a means of administering the death penalty". American National Biography.
  11. ↑ Christen, AG; Christen JA (November 2000). "Alfred P. Southwick, MDS, DDS: dental practitioner, educator and originator of electrical executions". Journal of the History of Dentistry. 48 (3): 115–45. PMID   11806253.
  12. ↑ Lumer, Michael; Tenney, Nancy (1995). "The Death Penalty in New York: An Historical Perspective". Journal of Law and Policy. 4 (1).
  13. ↑ Jeffers, H. Paul, An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (2000), p.34
  14. ↑ Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1932) Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the major resource on Cleveland. pp.61-62
  15. ↑ "The Execution of John Gaffney". The Buffalonian. Archived from the original on October 6, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
  16. ↑ McFadden, Robert D. (October 14, 2014). "David Greenglass, the Brother Who Doomed Ethel Rosenberg, Dies at 92". The New York Times.
  17. ↑ "Ethel Rosenberg Day of Justice in the Borough of Manhattan" Declared on Sep 28, Ethel's 100th Birthday". Portside. October 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  18. ↑ Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, 1999
  19. ↑ "Death-Penalty Bill is Vetoed by Carey". The New York Times. July 13, 1977.
  20. ↑ Kolbert, Elizabeth (March 21, 1989). "Cuomo Vetoes Death Penalty Seventh Time". The New York Times.
  21. ↑ "Cuomo Again Vetoes Bill for Death Penalty". The New York Times. March 18, 1986.
  22. ↑ Foderaro, Lisa W. (May 1989). "Angered by Attack, Trump Urges Return of the Death Penalty". The New York Times.
  23. ↑ Sack, Kevin (January 12, 1995). "New York Transfers Killer to Oklahoma To Await Execution". The New York Times . Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  24. ↑ Schwartzman, Paul; Finnegan, Michael (March 20, 1995). "GRASSO IS PUT TO DEATH POEM, COMPLAINT HIS FINAL WORDS". New York Daily News . Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  25. ↑ Mckinley, James C. Jr. (July 6, 2001). "State's Death Penalty Law Passes Test". The New York Times.
  26. ↑ Eaton, Leslie (August 31, 2005). "THE AD CAMPAIGN; A Morgenthau Attack, for Liberal Voters". The New York Times . Retrieved December 31, 2009. THE SCRIPT -- A narrator says: 'For district attorney, a clear choice. Eliot Spitzer calls Bob Morgenthau the best prosecutor in the nation. Morgenthau's innovative policies have brought crime in Manhattan down to record lows. And Morgenthau is leading the fight against the death penalty. Leslie Crocker Snyder supports the death penalty. She even told one defendant that she would have been willing to give him the lethal injection herself. Leslie Crocker Snyder. Wrong on the death penalty. Wrong for Manhattan.'
  27. ↑ "When to End an Era". The New York Times . August 30, 2005. Retrieved December 31, 2009. There are some aspects of Ms. Snyder's record that give us pause. Unlike Mr. Morgenthau, she supports the death penalty.
  28. ↑ Powell, Michael; Rashbaum, William K.; Weiser, Benjamin (February 27, 2009). "Morgenthau Heads for Door, Legacy Assured". The New York Times . Retrieved January 8, 2010. A liberal Democratic lion, he never once sought the death penalty; and yet the city's most confrontational mayors, Edward I. Koch and Rudolph W. Giuliani, hesitated to slash at him.
  29. ↑ "New Ideas". Archived from the original on September 23, 2009. Retrieved December 31, 2009. Capital punishment is contrary to our values as New Yorkers. It is immoral and it is wrong. I have always opposed capital punishment, and will lead the effort against any attempt to revive it in New York.
  30. ↑ Healy, Patrick D. (April 13, 2005). "New York Assembly Democrats Close off Death Penalty for 2005". The New York Times.
  31. ↑ "Senate Passes Death Penalty Legislation". March 9, 2005. Retrieved December 31, 2009. Senator Thomas P. Morahan announced that the New York State Senate passed legislation that will reinstate the death penalty for criminals who kill police officers. The Senate also passed a bill that would amend the state's death penalty law to fix a provision that was ruled invalid by the state Court of Appeals.
  32. ↑ Cooper, Michael; Ramirez, Anthony (March 10, 2005). "New York: Albany: Senate Votes To Restore Execution". The New York Times . Retrieved December 31, 2009. The Republican-led State Senate voted yesterday to restore New York's death penalty, but the Democratic-controlled Assembly has shown little inclination to follow suit. The vote in the Senate was 37 to 22, mostly along party lines.
  33. ↑ "Senate Passes Bill To Establish Death Penalty For Cop Killers". May 29, 2008. Retrieved December 31, 2009. The New York State Senate today passed legislation, sponsored by Senator Martin Golden (R-C, Brooklyn), that would establish the death penalty for criminals who kill police officers.
  34. ↑ Scott, Brendan. "GOV PULLS SWITCH ON DEATH CELL" (Archive). New York Daily News . July 24, 2008. Retrieved on September 2, 2010. "The Department of Correctional Services has quietly struck from the books a 40-year-old rule that designated the upstate Green Haven Correctional Facility the state's "Capital Punishment Unit."[...] Although seven defendants were sentenced to death after then-Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, signed the law, the death house has never hosted an execution.[...]"
  35. ↑ "Governor Cuomo to Advance Legislation to Remove Death Penalty from State Law in Solidarity with Pope Francis". Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. August 2, 2018. Archived from the original on March 26, 2019. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  36. ↑ "Military judge overrules defense secretary and says plea deals for alleged 9/11 conspirators are valid". CNN . November 7, 2024. Retrieved February 22, 2025.

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