Capital punishment in New York (state)

Capital punishment was outlawed in the State of New York after the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, declared in 2004 that as currently practiced it was not allowed under the state's constitution. However certain crimes occurring in the state that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government are subject to the federal death penalty.

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 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. New York has had no valid statute relating to capital punishment since then.

Subsequent legislative attempts at fixing or replacing the statute have failed, and in July 2008 Governor David Paterson issued an executive order disestablishing New York's death row. Legislative efforts to amend the statute have failed, and death sentences are no longer sought at the state level.