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Death penalty bill killed
12/04/2005 21:53 - (SA)
Albany - A powerful committee of the New York state assembly voted on Tuesday not to send legislation aimed at reinstating New York's death penalty to the full house, a move that may effectively kill the effort for this year.
Such legislation has been pushed hard by Republican governor George Pataki and the state senate's Republican majority leader, Joseph Bruno.
"I'm very pleased," Albany's Roman Catholic bishop, Howard Hubbard, said after the 11-7 vote by the assembly's codes committee. "I think the death penalty has not proven effective and is morally repugnant."
New York's death penalty was reinstated in 1995 by the legislature and Pataki, who had vowed to bring capital punishment back during the 1994 campaign when he ousted incumbent Democrat Mario Cuomo. Cuomo, in 12 years as governor, had routinely vetoed death penalty legislation.
No one was ever executed under the 1995 death penalty law, and it was effectively declared invalid by a ruling from the state's highest court last year.
While he has been a death penalty supporter in the past, state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, a New York City Democrat, has cooled to the policy in recent months.
The high court's ruling last June invalidated the sentences of all four men on the state's death row. The court of appeals ruled that provisions in the law governing jury instructions could result in some jurors voting for death when they really don't want to.
- AP
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