Posted on 08/12/2004 5:47:08 AM PDT by OESY
Six weeks after the New York Court of Appeals effectively threw out the state's death-penalty law, a new bill to protect capital punishment against new legal challenges has been introduced in the state Legislature. Unfortunately, the measure probably won't even come up for a vote.
That's because Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has no interest in passing a capital-punishment bill without enough legal loopholes to ensure that no death sentence ever is carried out in New York.
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New York's capital-punishment law, he said, would be "the most effective of its kind in the nation." Yet, numerous lawmakers at the time warned that the law was so legally flawed, the court was sure to strike it down. Which it did in June.
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At issue is a clause requiring judges to instruct juries in capital cases that if they deadlock in deciding between a death sentence and life without parole, the defendant must receive a sentence that carries the possibility of parole.
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Certainly, public clamor for reviving capital punishment has waned in recent years, thanks to the successful crackdown on crime initiated by Rudy Giuliani and sustained by Mayor Bloomberg.
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True, the penalty's deterrent value is lessened by the endless appeals process and the likelihood it won't be applied.
But that's exactly why lawmakers need to pass a bill that not only reinstates the penalty, but that also ensures the sentence can be applied speedily — and with certainty. It's time for Albany to deliver the law that was promised a decade ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Beneath waffling, Kerry opposes death penalty
As a mother who is surviving the unimaginable pain of losing a child to murder, my opposition to John Kerry is very personal. In his acceptance speech, he never mentioned the death penalty.
Kerry opposes it, even for those who murder children. Not surprisingly, he has flip-flopped for political purposes and now claims to support the death penalty for terrorists who kill Americans. But does he really? And if he does, how can he justify executing terrorists who murder Americans but not the monsters who live among us and murder our children?
Kerry is on record that he will impose a moratorium on the federal death penalty. He favors Osama bin Laden being tried in a U.S. court. That would be a federal trial. Would the moratorium apply to the man responsible for the most horrific mass murder in our history?
Kerry brags about his record as a tough prosecutor, but he prosecuted white-collar criminals, not violent offenders. We can reasonably judge what people might do by what they have done. Kerry will be soft on crime. He will nominate leftist, weak federal judges. He defended the Michael Dukakis furlough program that allowed convicted murderer Willie Horton to murder again.
Kerry will not get this family's vote. It is very personal.
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