I saw nothing about dotted i’s and crossed t’s, except in taking what they were told at face value maybe. This means, at worst, the case gets sent back to a new jury for a resentencing, and with the mistakes taken out it ought to come out as before, if this was actually due. Nobody has commented on what the mistake might imply for cloudier cases, if it were allowed to slide. “Hard cases make bad law.”
They deliberated for 9 days in the penalty phase. There was no mistake; it was merely that the appeals court judges were looking for a way to void the death penalty, and by combing through the record, they found a phrase they could claim to be dubious. They can do that no matter what; if it hadn’t been that phrase, it would have been something else, equally unimportant and meaningless. But it would have been enough to give the judges cover for overturning the decision, which was their intention from the very start.
The death penalty is extremely rare in New York, at least partly because appeals court judges are determined not to let it happen. And criminals get the message that somebody is always going to be out there to save their hides at the last moment, and the fact that they have killed innocent people doesn’t matter, because innocent life is not valued.