A slow death

The death knell may be sounding for the death penalty in New York, as lawmakers in Albany blocked the reinstatement of Governor Pataki's 10-year-old capital punishment law last week. The Assembly Codes committee's 11-7 vote effectively kills state Republicans' efforts to reinstate the death penalty, one of the defining policy changes of Pataki's gubernatorial career. The move reflects an encouraging national trend against the death penalty, which is viewed as a major human rights abuse by many Americans and most countries in the world.

One of Pataki's core issues in his successful 1994 gubernatorial campaign was a tough stance on crime based around the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York. This legislation proved to be ineffective, as not a single convicted criminal has been executed in the law's 10-year existence. The first time the bill was submitted to the Assembly, it was passed by an overwhelming majority, especially in the wake of outcries regarding former Governor Mario Cuomo's perceived laxity toward crime in the early 1990s.

According to Gallup polls, from the end of Cuomo's term and the beginning of Pataki's, national opinion heavily favored the death penalty over life without parole as the ultimate sentence. The most recent polls have shown a 10 percent shift in public opinion from the death penalty to life without parole, showing national opinion almost exactly split on the death penalty. This shift appears to have influenced the State Assembly, as legislators who formerly supported the death penalty headed the Assembly Codes committee.

This marks more than a mere shift in public opinion. It is based on a recognition of the death penalty as ineffective, even leaving aside the human rights argument. Politicians sold the death penalty based on three points: that it works as an effective deterrent, as appropriate retribution for heinous crimes and as a money saver for states. All three arguments have proven to be false.

According to the FBI statistics, states with the death penalty have a murder rate 44 percent higher than those without capital punishment. The retribution argument becomes dangerous with the advent of DNA technology that has overturned many cases in recent years, saving lives of many innocent people. As for cost, the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty cites statistics that show death penalty cases costing states almost nine times as much as non-death penalty cases, citing the cost of appeals, separate housing and other legal costs.

National pressure on death penalty change has been rising in recent years, with debate in Illinois leading to a moratorium on executions, pardons for those on death row and a virtual standstill on the issue in its legislature. The anti-death penalty movement in North Carolina has also gained significant momentum, along with that in several other states. Unfortunately, Connecticut and Texas just voted to maintain their death penalty statutes.

Most countries in the world have outlawed the death penalty - 124 countries in all, including nearly every major industrialized country. Of those that remain, a majority of the executions occur in the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Hopefully, the movements of the New York Assembly may be the start of a trend to pull the United States away from such exclusive - and unfortunate - company.