Regular Session - May 14, 2007
2681
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
2
3
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
5
6
7
8
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 May 14, 2007
11 3:16 p.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 SENATOR THOMAS P. MORAHAN, Acting President
19 STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
3 Senate will come to order.
4 I ask all in attendance to please
5 rise and recite with me the Pledge of
6 Allegiance to our Flag.
7 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
8 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: We're
10 joined today by the Reverend Peter G. Young,
11 from Mother Theresa Community in Albany, who
12 will give us the invocation.
13 REVEREND YOUNG: Thank you,
14 Senator. Let us pray.
15 By being a Senator, you have been
16 accepted into a leadership position so that
17 you can more fully serve the people of
18 New York State.
19 In this spirit of community, our
20 prayer on this beautiful May day will be to
21 better achieve the goal of dedicated
22 representation in the power that is entrusted
23 to all of our legislative leadership. May you
24 attain your satisfaction in your services to
25 your constituents.
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1 We ask You this through God. Amen.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
3 you, Reverend Young.
4 Reading of the Journal.
5 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
6 Sunday, May 13, the Senate met pursuant to
7 adjournment. The Journal of Saturday, May 12,
8 was read and approved. On motion, Senate
9 adjourned.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
11 Without objection, the Journal stands approved
12 as read.
13 Presentation of petitions.
14 Messages from the Assembly.
15 Messages from the Governor.
16 Reports of standing committees.
17 Reports of select committees.
18 Communications and reports from
19 state officers.
20 Motions and resolutions.
21 Senator Robach.
22 SENATOR ROBACH: Yes,
23 Mr. President. These amendments are offered
24 on the following Third Reading Calendar bills:
25 Senator Fuschillo, on page 17,
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1 Calendar Number 136, Senate Print Number
2 2360A;
3 Senator Little, page 36, Calendar
4 Number 630, Print Number 3814;
5 Senator Lanza, page 35, Calendar
6 Number 629, Print Number 3584;
7 Senator Fuschillo, page 43,
8 Calendar Number 753, Print Number 5035;
9 And lastly, Senator Nozzolio,
10 page 37, Calendar Number 682, Print Number
11 4118.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
13 amendments are received and adopted, and the
14 bills will retain their place on the Third
15 Reading Calendar.
16 Senator Bonacic.
17 SENATOR BONACIC: Thank you,
18 Mr. President.
19 On behalf of Senator LaValle, I
20 wish to call up his bill, Print Number 3821,
21 recalled from the Assembly, which is now at
22 the desk.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
24 Secretary will read.
25 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
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1 550, by Senator LaValle, Senate Print 3821, an
2 act to amend the Alcoholic Beverage Control
3 Law.
4 SENATOR BONACIC: Mr. President,
5 I now move to reconsider the vote by which the
6 bill was passed.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
8 the roll on reconsideration.
9 (The Secretary called the roll.)
10 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 42.
11 SENATOR BONACIC: Mr. President,
12 I now offer the following amendments.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
14 amendments are received and adopted.
15 SENATOR BONACIC: This is a
16 second matter by Senator LaValle. I move that
17 the following bills be discharged from their
18 respective committees and be recommitted with
19 instructions to strike the enacting clause:
20 Senate Bill Number 1688.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: So
22 ordered.
23 SENATOR BONACIC: Thank you,
24 Mr. President.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: You're
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1 welcome, Senator.
2 Senator Skelos.
3 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
4 Resolution 1154, by Senator Wright, was
5 previously adopted. Could we have it read in
6 its entirety at this time, and please
7 recognize Senator Wright.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
9 Secretary will read.
10 THE SECRETARY: By Senator
11 Wright, Legislative Resolution Number 1154,
12 congratulating the Hammond Central High School
13 Girls Basketball Team and Coach Shawn H. Dack
14 upon the occasion of capturing the New York
15 State Class D Championship.
16 "WHEREAS, Excellence and success in
17 competitive sports can be achieved only
18 through strenuous practice, team play and team
19 spirit, nurtured by dedicated coaching and
20 strategic planning; and
21 "WHEREAS, Athletic competition
22 enhances the moral and physical development of
23 the young people of this state, preparing them
24 for the future by instilling in them the value
25 of teamwork, encouraging a standard of healthy
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1 living, imparting a desire for success, and
2 developing a sense of fair play and
3 competition; and
4 "WHEREAS, The Hammond Central High
5 School Girls Basketball Team are the New York
6 State Class D champions. Hammond's historical
7 state championship is the first ever
8 basketball title for a Section X team; and
9 "WHEREAS, The Hammond Lady Red
10 Devils defeated S.S. Seward by a score of 52
11 to 51 in a thrilling comeback win to claim the
12 state crown on Sunday, March 18, 2007, at
13 Hudson Valley Community College, Troy,
14 New York; and
15 "WHEREAS, After shooting a dismal
16 eight for 32 from the field, Hammond trailed
17 34-22 at halftime. The Lady Red Devils then
18 made serious adjustments to get back into the
19 game; and
20 "WHEREAS, With 15 seconds left to
21 play in the game, the Lady Red Devils hit a
22 three-pointer to take the lead for good as
23 they stymied S.S. Seward for the New York
24 State Class D Championship; and
25 "WHEREAS, The athletic talent
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1 displayed by this team is due in great part to
2 the efforts of Coach Shawn Dack, a skilled and
3 inspirational tutor, respected for his ability
4 to develop potential into excellence; and
5 "WHEREAS, The team's overall record
6 is outstanding, and the team members were
7 loyally and enthusiastically supported by
8 family, fans, friends and the community at
9 large; and
10 "WHEREAS, The hallmarks of the
11 Hammond Central High School Girls Basketball
12 Team, from the opening of the season to
13 participation in the championship, were a
14 sisterhood of athletic ability, of good
15 sportsmanship, of honor and of scholarship,
16 demonstrating that these team players were
17 second to none; and
18 "WHEREAS, Athletically and
19 academically, the team members have proven
20 themselves to be an unbeatable combination of
21 talents reflecting favorably on their school;
22 and
23 "WHEREAS, Coach Shawn Dack has done
24 a superb job in guiding, molding and inspiring
25 the team members toward their goals; and
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1 "WHEREAS, Sports competition
2 instills the values of teamwork, pride and
3 accomplishment, and Coach Shawn Dack and these
4 outstanding athletes have clearly made a
5 contribution to the spirit of excellence which
6 is a tradition of their school; now,
7 therefore, be it
8 "RESOLVED, That this Legislative
9 Body pause in its deliberations to
10 congratulate the Hammond Central High School
11 Girls Basketball Team, its members -- Emily
12 Moquin, Brittany Kenyon, Nicole Davidson,
13 Aubrie Dunn, Cassie Cunningham, Brooke
14 Hollister, Katlyn Hunt, Whitney Atkins,
15 Malynda Jenne, Sarah Sheridan, Sara Measheaw,
16 and Jessica Martin -- and Coaches Shawn Dack,
17 Larry Hollister and Chet Truskowski,
18 Superintendent Doug McQueen and Scorekeeper
19 Cathy Tulley, on their outstanding season and
20 overall team record; and be it further
21 "RESOLVED, That copies of this
22 resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted
23 to the Hammond Central High School Girls
24 Basketball Team and to the aforementioned
25 staff."
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
2 Senator Wright.
3 SENATOR WRIGHT: Thank you,
4 Mr. President.
5 I rise to welcome the New York
6 State champions for basketball. The Class D
7 champions from Hammond have joined us here in
8 the chambers today. I would ask them to rise,
9 if they would please stand.
10 For those of you who are not
11 familiar with it, Hammond is not a very big
12 place. It's a crossroads in St. Lawrence
13 County. And this small high school has
14 produced these young ladies, who are not only
15 statewide champions but all of them are
16 returning next year. So we're hoping that
17 we're going to see a repeat of the
18 championship.
19 And to give you some sense of how
20 proud Hammond is, the school superintendent
21 also serves as an assistant coach. The mayor
22 has joined us today also, Shelley Young,
23 because her daughter is on the team.
24 Hammond is all about what I think
25 we believe very strongly in this chamber, the
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1 values of community, the values of family.
2 And this team and this school district typify
3 that.
4 And so we're very pleased and proud
5 of their accomplishment. We're very
6 appreciative of the Senate enacting this
7 resolution today, recognizing not only their
8 athletic achievement but their ability to
9 serve as role models to young women throughout
10 this state, women who demonstrate that they
11 can achieve an accomplishment, that they serve
12 their peers well, that they can serve as role
13 models.
14 So it's my honor to represent them
15 and their families in Hammond. It's my honor
16 to welcome them here to the Capitol today.
17 And it's my honor to express my appreciation
18 on behalf of Senator Bruno and all the members
19 of the Senate today in recognizing your
20 accomplishments.
21 Well done. Congratulations.
22 (Applause.)
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
24 you, Senator Wright.
25 Senator Volker.
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1 SENATOR VOLKER: I just want to
2 say, as the -- some people up there say the
3 second Senator from Hammond, I've spent a lot
4 of time fishing at Black Lake for the last 45
5 years. And Hammond is actually the town where
6 the cottages we've stayed at is.
7 And I know a lot about the town.
8 The people there love Jim Wright, and they
9 should. It's a great place.
10 And I want to congratulate you on
11 behalf of myself and my family. And my
12 daughter and my family would think I was
13 remiss if I didn't say something good, because
14 they've always loved the town of Hammond.
15 Congratulations.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
17 you, Senator Volker.
18 The resolution was adopted on March
19 27th.
20 And as Senator Wright pointed out,
21 these young ladies are in the gallery today.
22 Congratulations. Well done; a great
23 accomplishment. Thank you.
24 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Senator Skelos.
2 SENATOR SKELOS: If we could go
3 to the noncontroversial reading of the
4 calendar.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
6 Secretary will read.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 232, by Senator Farley, Senate Print 2864, an
9 act to amend the Banking Law, in relation to
10 enforcement.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
12 the last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
16 the roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Announce the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
22 bill is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 475, by Senator Rath, Senate Print 1756A, an
25 act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law and
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1 the Penal Law, in relation to suspension.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
3 the last section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
5 act shall take effect on the first of
6 November.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
8 the roll.
9 (The Secretary called the roll.)
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
11 Announce the results.
12 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
13 the negative on Calendar Number 475 are
14 Senators Duane and Sabini.
15 Ayes, 54. Nays, 2.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
17 bill is passed.
18 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
19 537, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 3910, an
20 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in
21 relation to a sentence of parole supervision.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
23 the last section.
24 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
25 act shall take effect immediately.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
2 the roll.
3 (The Secretary called the roll.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
5 Announce the results.
6 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
8 bill is passed.
9 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
10 610, by Senator Larkin, Senate Print 2721, an
11 act to amend the Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering
12 and Breeding Law, in relation to the
13 imposition of fines.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
15 the last section.
16 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
17 act shall take effect immediately.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
19 the roll.
20 (The Secretary called the roll.)
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Announce the results.
23 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
25 bill is passed.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
2 639, by Senator Golden, Senate Print --
3 SENATOR DUANE: Lay it aside,
4 please.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
6 bill is laid aside.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 642, by Senator Libous, Senate Print --
9 SENATOR DUANE: Lay it aside,
10 please.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
12 bill is laid aside.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 644, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print
15 2739, an act to amend the Penal Law, in
16 relation to establishing.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
18 the last section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
20 act shall take effect on the first of
21 November.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
23 the roll.
24 (The Secretary called the roll.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Announce the results.
2 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
4 bill is passed.
5 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
6 655, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 4146, an
7 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in
8 relation to final orders of observation.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
10 the last section.
11 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
12 act shall take effect on the 30th day.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
14 the roll.
15 (The Secretary called the roll.)
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
17 Announce the results.
18 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
20 bill is passed.
21 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
22 707, by Senator Flanagan, Senate Print 796, an
23 act to amend the Tax Law, in relation to
24 exemptions.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
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1 is a local fiscal impact note at the desk.
2 Read the last section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
4 act shall take effect on the first day of a
5 sales tax quarterly period.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
7 the roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Announce the results.
11 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 55. Nays,
12 1. Senator Duane recorded in the negative.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
14 bill is passed.
15 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
16 716, by Senator Young, Senate Print 3714, an
17 act to amend the Agriculture and Markets
18 Law --
19 SENATOR SKELOS: Lay it aside for
20 the day, please.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
22 bill is laid aside for the day.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 734, by Senator C. Kruger, Senate Print 4541,
25 an act to amend the Family Court Act and the
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1 Domestic Relations Law, in relation to orders
2 of protection.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
4 the last section.
5 THE SECRETARY: Section 8. This
6 act shall take effect on the 90th day.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
8 the roll.
9 (The Secretary called the roll.)
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
11 Announce the results.
12 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
14 bill is passed.
15 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
16 752, by Senator Fuschillo, Senate Print 4964,
17 an act to amend the General Business Law, in
18 relation to mail order and telephone order
19 merchandise.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
21 the last section.
22 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
23 act shall take effect immediately.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
25 the roll.
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1 (The Secretary called the roll.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
3 Announce the results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
6 bill is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 757, by Senator Marcellino, Senate Print 4368,
9 an act to amend the Tax Law, in relation to
10 making technical corrections.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
12 the last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
16 the roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Announce the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56. Nays,
21 0.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
23 bill is passed.
24 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
25 758, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print 53,
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1 an act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law,
2 in relation to penalties for littering.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
4 the last section.
5 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
6 act shall take effect on the first of
7 November.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
9 the roll.
10 (The Secretary called the roll.)
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
12 Announce the results.
13 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
15 bill is passed.
16 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
17 762, by Senator Griffo, Senate Print 880, an
18 act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
19 designation of the "Griffiss Veterans'
20 Memorial Parkway."
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
22 the last section.
23 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
24 act shall take effect immediately.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
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1 the roll.
2 (The Secretary called the roll.)
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Announce the results.
5 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
7 bill is passed.
8 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
9 769, by Senator Winner, Senate Print 3237, an
10 act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
11 authorizing.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
13 the last section.
14 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
15 act shall take effect immediately.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
17 the roll.
18 (The Secretary called the roll.)
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
20 Announce the results.
21 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
23 bill is passed.
24 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
25 777, by Senator LaValle, Senate Print 4299, an
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1 act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
2 designating.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
4 the last section.
5 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
6 act shall take effect on the 30th day.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
8 the roll.
9 (The Secretary called the roll.)
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
11 nnounce the results.
12 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
14 bill is passed.
15 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
16 790, by Senator Maziarz, Senate Print 21, an
17 act to authorize the First Volunteer Fire
18 Company of Bergholz, Inc.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
20 the last section.
21 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
22 act shall take effect immediately.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
24 the roll.
25 (The Secretary called the roll.)
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
2 Announce the results.
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 55. Nays,
4 1. Senator Duane recorded in the negative.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
6 bill is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 795, by Senator Morahan, Senate Print 1475, an
9 act authorizing Northeastern Conference
10 Corporation of Seventh Day Adventists.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
12 the last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
16 the roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Announce the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 54. Nays,
21 2. Senators Bonacic and Larkin recorded in
22 the negative.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
24 bill is passed.
25 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
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1 803, by Senator Trunzo, Senate Print 3260, an
2 act in relation to authorizing the assessor of
3 the Town of Brookhaven.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
5 the last section.
6 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
7 act shall take effect immediately.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
9 the roll.
10 (The Secretary called the roll.)
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
12 Announce the results.
13 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 54. Nays,
14 2. Senators Bonacic and Larkin recorded in
15 the negative.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
17 bill is passed.
18 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
19 805, by Senator Trunzo, Senate Print 3262, an
20 act in relation in authorizing the assessor of
21 the Town of Islip.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
23 the last section.
24 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
25 act shall take effect immediately.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
2 the roll.
3 (The Secretary called the roll.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
5 Announce the results.
6 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 54. Nays,
7 2. Senators Bonacic and Larkin recorded in
8 the negative.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
10 bill is passed.
11 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
12 817, by Senator Flanagan, Senate Print 4175,
13 an act to amend the Public Authorities Law, in
14 relation to powers.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
16 the last section.
17 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
18 act shall take effect immediately.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
20 the roll.
21 (The Secretary called the roll.)
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
23 Announce the results.
24 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
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1 bill is passed.
2 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
3 825, by Senator LaValle, Senate Print 3922, an
4 act to amend the Education Law, in relation to
5 disclosure of gifts.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
7 the last section.
8 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
9 act shall take effect on the first of August.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
11 the roll.
12 (The Secretary called the roll.)
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
14 Announce the results.
15 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
17 bill is passed.
18 Senator Skelos, that completes the
19 noncontroversial reading of the calendar.
20 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you,
21 Mr. President. If we could ring the bells and
22 then move on to the controversial reading of
23 the calendar.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
25 Secretary will ring the bells.
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1 The Secretary will read.
2 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
3 639, by Senator Golden, Senate Print 319, an
4 act to amend the Penal Law and the Criminal
5 Procedure Law.
6 SENATOR DUANE: Explanation,
7 please.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
9 Senator Golden, an explanation has been
10 requested.
11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you,
12 Mr. President.
13 We're introducing the death penalty
14 today because we believe it will save lives
15 and bring crime down across the state of
16 New York.
17 We've seen, in 1977, when the
18 Supreme Court took out the death penalty,
19 we've seen crime rise across the State of
20 New York, over 900,000 crimes and over 2245
21 homicides in 1992 and 1993. And then we've
22 seen the death penalty put back in by our
23 Governor, Governor Pataki at that point,
24 reinstated.
25 And even though we put nobody to
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1 death in this state between 1995 and 2003,
2 when they took out -- when the Supreme Court
3 found that it was not justified on the jury
4 sentencing portion of it, we've seen crime
5 come down across this state drastically, to
6 below 300,000 crimes committed across this
7 state, to less than 600 homicides in 2005 and
8 2004.
9 And the Supreme Court again found
10 that the jury section, the sentencing section
11 of this law was unconstitutional. So what
12 we're doing here today is correcting that and
13 moving the death penalty for those that would
14 kill police officers, state troopers, those
15 that would kill peace officers, and those that
16 would kill correction officers and correction
17 employees in their line of duty.
18 And the question is why do we do
19 that today. Well, we do it today because
20 we've seen over 10 police officers and
21 troopers killed in the past year and a half, a
22 rise in numbers that we haven't seen since the
23 '70s, an outstanding number of police officers
24 and state troopers being assassinated. One
25 most recently in Utica, where they walked up
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1 behind the state trooper and they shot him in
2 the back of the head.
3 And we've seen most recently
4 Trooper Brinkerhoff, and we see most recently
5 the case with Trooper Andrew Sperr. And we
6 see a host of cases and a host of crimes that
7 are going up across the cities and state, and
8 the number of homicides that are going up as
9 well.
10 And I point out Andrew Sperr
11 because the codefendants in that case, while
12 being questioned in a jury trial, stated the
13 reason that they shot and killed Trooper Sperr
14 is because there is no death penalty here in
15 the State of New York and that all they would
16 get is time in jail.
17 And then we see studies, the Mocan
18 and Gittings study that shows each individual
19 execution results in a decrease of five
20 murders, and we see the study of Shepherd
21 coming out of the University of Chicago. That
22 confirms that, but decreases it by three
23 murders instead of five.
24 So we see crimes of passion coming
25 down. We see homicides and murders of police
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1 officers and state troopers coming down. We
2 see in 1995 where you had 10 to 14 murders per
3 100,000 people, and you seen that drop to 8.5
4 in 1995, and you seen a drop to 4.5 per
5 100,000 in 2005. That's not coincidence.
6 Those are direct statistics that prove that
7 this is a deterrent.
8 So what we've done is presently, in
9 the case where the jury is deadlocked and the
10 defendant is automatically sentenced to an
11 indeterminate term with a minimum of 20 to 25
12 years to life, we've changed that. In a
13 deadlock provision, we've changed it to life
14 imprisonment without parole. And we've
15 reduced it and been more specific as to who it
16 would apply to, and that's to peace officers,
17 police officers and correction officers across
18 the state of New York.
19 The states that have this, in Texas
20 and North Carolina, we see two police officers
21 dying by gunshot. We see the same in South
22 Carolina and Florida. And here in New York,
23 just since the beginning of 2007, we have four
24 officers fallen by gunshot. Fifty-seven law
25 enforcement officers across the country since
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1 the beginning of this year, and 23 of them
2 have died by gunfire.
3 Thirty-eight states have the death
4 penalty, and the United States government has
5 it. And in all these cases we see -- in a
6 majority of the cases we see a remarkable drop
7 in crime and a remarkable drop in homicides
8 and deaths against police officers.
9 So today we're asking our
10 colleagues in the State Senate here to vote,
11 to vote for those that have died, for those
12 families that have lost loved ones across this
13 great state, and to tell them that we are
14 going to do what's right for the police
15 officers and the state troopers, for the
16 correction officers and peace officers, for
17 their families here in this great state.
18 We need to stop this open season on
19 troopers and police officers. And this,
20 ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what it is --
21 it's an open season to kill law enforcement.
22 The majority of this state is in favor. In
23 recent polling, 76 percent across the state of
24 New York believe that we should have a death
25 penalty for those that would kill police
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1 officers and troopers in the line of duty.
2 So I ask my colleagues on both
3 sides to search their conscience and to vote
4 for a piece of legislation that will save
5 lives and at the same time bring down crime
6 across the State of New York.
7 And I'm hoping that my colleagues
8 in the Assembly -- and if this bill gets to
9 the floor of the Assembly, you would have over
10 100 votes in that Assembly for this bill. We
11 need this bill. We need this legislation.
12 And we would have unanimous support in the
13 Assembly if this bill were to hit the floor.
14 So we're hoping here that
15 colleagues on the other side will join us and
16 vote their conscience for all those troopers,
17 all those officers, all those correction
18 officers and all those peace officers that go
19 out each and every day and put their lives on
20 the line for us.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Senator Bruno.
23 SENATOR BRUNO: Thank you,
24 Mr. President. And thank you, Senator. And
25 thank you, Senator Golden. Thank you for
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1 introducing this legislation; thank you for
2 your explanation on the reasons why the
3 passage of this is so compelling.
4 And no one takes pleasure in
5 proposing a death penalty for anyone. No one
6 takes any pleasure in that. It's tragic that
7 it's necessary. But as the Senator may have
8 reviewed, this year, the last several months,
9 four police officers killed. The last year,
10 10 law enforcement personnel killed.
11 As you heard in testimony, with one
12 of the killers who stepped out of his car and
13 shot a law enforcement person right in the
14 face, say to his colleague in the car before
15 he stepped out: "New York State doesn't have
16 a death penalty?" He said no. "Well, then,
17 it's just a question of how much time you
18 get -- short time, long time." Now, that's
19 testimony in a deposition. He goes out and
20 shoots a cop.
21 Now, I would ask anyone here who
22 doesn't want to be supportive, when a person
23 who kills a police officer is incarcerated for
24 a length of time, for life, would you guard
25 him? Like Lemuel Smith killed corrections
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1 officers. Why? Couldn't get two life
2 sentences. Right? So you could kill a
3 corrections officer with impunity, and held
4 harmless. Now, think about that. Would you
5 go in and guard that person? I don't think
6 so.
7 Would you want your son or your
8 daughter, your father or your mother, your
9 grandfather or your grandmother to have to do
10 that? I don't think so. I don't think so.
11 So we're asking that this bill be
12 supported and sent to the Assembly. Governor
13 Spitzer, in his wisdom, has indicated public
14 support for passage of this legislation. So
15 we're appealing to Governor Spitzer, who uses
16 his bully pulpit very effectively when he
17 wants to, to stand up, speak up, speak out,
18 travel this state and go into the Assembly
19 districts and go into the districts where
20 people are reluctant or unwilling to stand up
21 for people who are in law enforcement.
22 We're asking the Governor to do
23 that, because he says he supports it. And I
24 believe him. I believe this Governor. And
25 for the people that are here, the young
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1 people, if this Governor wants to make this
2 law, he can do it. He is extremely
3 persuasive.
4 So we're appealing to the Governor.
5 The Assembly, they've had their opportunities
6 since this law, parts of it were struck down
7 as unconstitutional. They have not addressed
8 this issue, and they're indicating
9 uncertainty.
10 Senator Golden, you're right. This
11 bill on the floor would pass in an
12 overwhelming way. Why? Because the great
13 majority of people in the Legislature want to
14 protect people who dedicate their lives to
15 protecting the innocent, to protecting women,
16 children, innocent people. They get up in the
17 morning, they answer calls. They're cruising,
18 walking, in their cars, never knowing what
19 circumstance is going to take place.
20 We attended the funeral of Trooper
21 Brinkerhoff and saw his 29-year-old wife, a
22 widow, 7-month-old baby. Killed. Trooper
23 Longobardo, my district, killed. Young widow;
24 young child, I think a year old. Think about
25 their lives and how their lives have changed.
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1 Think about the 10 police officers
2 killed in the last year. Think about their
3 lives when their families get up every
4 morning, they go to bed every night, and
5 there's empty space. Think about a mother on
6 Mother's Day, with a son killed. Killed by
7 whom? By animals, by people who are truly
8 demented, to look at someone and shoot them
9 right in the face. Think about that.
10 So we're appealing for support.
11 We're asking you to examine yourselves. And
12 again, I'll close and say no one takes
13 pleasure in proposing a death penalty for a
14 killer. But if it's ever valid, it is to
15 protect people who are peace officers, who are
16 there to protect all of the innocent people
17 who can't protect themselves.
18 I would not be in the chamber
19 smiling. I wouldn't be doing that. I would
20 be thinking and praying for the people who
21 have departed who were in law enforcement,
22 whose names are numbered over there in that
23 monument.
24 This is Law Enforcement Week this
25 week. We're going to go over there to that
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1 monument, and we're going to be adding in
2 engraved way to that monument there. And I've
3 been there for the last 12 years, and it
4 almost brings you to tears when you see the
5 children, you see the fathers and the mothers
6 and the wives and the husbands of someone that
7 has been killed by a criminal -- and, more
8 times than not, who have killed before.
9 The father of a slain officer was
10 in here two weeks ago. The person that killed
11 his son had killed someone 12 years before.
12 Went to prison and got out, killed a young
13 man. Think about that.
14 And what does a parent say as they
15 are describing what took place in their
16 families? What do they say? They're in
17 appealing for support and for help from all of
18 us. And we owe it to them. We owe it to
19 them, to the families, to the survivors, to
20 those that are out there every day, in or out
21 of uniform, protecting us, protecting you.
22 Protecting you. Protecting me. Protecting
23 all of us. That's that they do. And they're
24 prepared to give their lives.
25 We have to be prepared to do what
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1 we're elected to do, and that's help protect
2 those that are in law enforcement and who are
3 peace officers. I urge you to join us in
4 supporting this legislation, send it to the
5 Assembly. And with the support of the
6 Governor, hopefully we'll see it become law.
7 Thank you, Mr. President.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
9 you, Senator Bruno.
10 Senator Bonacic.
11 SENATOR BONACIC: Thank you,
12 Mr. President.
13 I think that this should be the
14 number-one legislative priority before session
15 ends. What could be more important than
16 public safety for our families that results in
17 protecting the first line of defense that
18 protects our families? And that is our law
19 enforcement communities.
20 I know that the anti-death penalty
21 advocates were up here last week and they
22 spoke of why we should not do a death penalty
23 for cop killers. I heard things like the cost
24 of prosecution. I heard the delays that it
25 will take to prosecute. I heard arguments
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1 about gun control. I heard so many other
2 arguments that have nothing to do with us
3 tackling the issue of a death penalty for cop
4 killers.
5 Now, when Trooper Brinkerhoff was
6 killed, the latest, two weeks ago, there was
7 rage. There was a lot of emotion. And
8 everyone said, Well, that's a knee-jerk
9 reaction, talking about a death penalty for
10 cop killers. I say that it's about justice,
11 just punishment, and deterrence.
12 You've heard from Senator Golden
13 who himself was a detective, who's a wounded
14 police officer, who knows a little bit about
15 what police officers do. You heard Senator
16 Bruno speak about how we have to protect our
17 law enforcement community, peace officers,
18 correction officers.
19 You heard a story when Anthony
20 Horton, they took his testimony of a witness,
21 an accomplice, and he said before they killed
22 a cop approaching the car, that if New York
23 State does not have a death penalty. Do you
24 honestly believe that a death penalty for cop
25 killers is not a deterrence when there are
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1 statistics that show that homicides against
2 police officers and murderers -- they fall
3 down, the statistics, if a death penalty for
4 cop killers is in place.
5 Now, I'm one of those that listens
6 to my constituents, that doesn't think life
7 imprisonment with parole is just punishment
8 when you take a police officer's life. Talk
9 to that police officer's wife, talk to that
10 police officer's parents, speak to the
11 children of that police officer about what is
12 just punishment. And there are a majority of
13 people in the state of New York that feel life
14 imprisonment without parole is not just
15 punishment. It's not a picnic, but for some
16 three meals a day, a bed and cable TV is not
17 that bad.
18 Now, when is the time that we
19 should act on a death penalty legislation?
20 When? Two weeks ago, before Trooper David
21 Brinkerhoff was killed, was that the
22 appropriate time?
23 Maybe it was April 11, 2007. Maybe
24 that was the date. Because that's when Utica
25 police officer Tom Lindsey was killed. No,
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1 no, that wasn't the time.
2 Maybe it was March 13, 2007.
3 That's when two New York City police officers,
4 Eugene Marshalik and Nicholas Pekearo, were
5 killed, gunned down by evil cowards. Wait.
6 Was that a knee-jerk reaction that we
7 talked -- no, let's go back. Let's go to
8 August 31, 2006. Trooper Joseph Longobardo
9 was killed. And he has a son now that's 20
10 months old.
11 If that is not the right time,
12 maybe we should have done it on February 28,
13 2006, because that's when Trooper Sperr was
14 killed. Now, Trooper Sperr, when he was
15 killed, he had surviving four brothers, six
16 sisters and parents. And that killer is
17 getting medical treatment from the state for
18 his wounds. Do you think they think life
19 without parole is just punishment?
20 But wait. Maybe February 27, 2006,
21 was appropriate. That's when New Hartford
22 police officer Joseph Corr was shot and
23 killed, leaving a wife and daughter.
24 This isn't about compassion
25 politics. This is about justice and
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1 deterrence and protection for our families.
2 Now, I can go on and on and on and
3 give you more police officers' names and
4 dates. But you know the time that we should
5 have been debating the death penalty and
6 talking about it? That was June 25, 2004.
7 And you know why that day was the appropriate
8 time? Because that was the day after the
9 Court of Appeals said that our death penalty
10 legislation was unconstitutional.
11 So I ask you, had we talked about
12 the death penalty then and implemented it,
13 maybe these 10 officers would still be alive
14 today.
15 I think we have to give juries and
16 judges an alternative to see when the
17 punishment fits the crime. A terrorist cop
18 killer, undisputed evidence, no chance of
19 nailing the wrong defendant? It is just to
20 take that evil person's life.
21 The time for justice is now, not to
22 keep talking about the death penalty when the
23 next police officer gets killed. I know this
24 chamber will be generally supportive. And,
25 you know, there's something morally and
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1 ethically wrong with our system when a power
2 broker in the Assembly like Sheldon Silver can
3 put his thumb on a bill and not let it come to
4 the floor, when the majority of the people in
5 the state of New York want their elected
6 legislators to vote up or down.
7 We know where law enforcement
8 stands. We know where peace officers stand,
9 we know where correction officers stand. And
10 everyone knows where the majority of this
11 Senate stands, and that's with the law
12 enforcement community. I vote aye.
13 Thank you, Mr. President.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
15 you, Senator Bonacic.
16 Senator Schneiderman.
17 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
18 Mr. President.
19 I believe there's an amendment at
20 the desk. I ask that the reading of the
21 amendment be waived and that I be heard on the
22 amendment.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
24 reading is waived, and you may be heard on the
25 amendment.
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1 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
2 Mr. President.
3 This is as serious an issue as any
4 we deal with here in the Senate. The decision
5 as to whether or not we will impose the
6 ultimate sanction of a state-imposed death
7 penalty is a profound and serious decision. I
8 know everyone here takes it with the gravity
9 that it deserves.
10 This amendment has a very simple
11 purpose, and I hope that we can get truly
12 bipartisan support for it. Because if
13 anything, I think it makes the case of those
14 who argue for stiffer sentences and argue for
15 the death penalty a stronger case. This is an
16 amendment that ensures that before we pass a
17 bill to impose this ultimate sanction, we take
18 every step possible to ensure that innocent
19 people are not wrongfully convicted.
20 Now, we know through the work of
21 the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School
22 and others that innocent people are convicted
23 of serious crimes of murder, of attempted
24 murder, of rape in the state of New York.
25 Senator Volker, indeed, is a
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1 sponsor of a bill that would move the claims
2 for compensation for people who are wrongfully
3 convicted in New York to the front of the
4 line, as it were, when they're seeking to get
5 into the judicial system after being locked up
6 for crimes they didn't commit.
7 We also know that there are people
8 who are put on death row in states that have
9 the death penalty who are wrongfully
10 convicted. May 11, 2007, saw this headline:
11 "Breaking News, Oklahoma Man Freed, 124th
12 death penalty exoneration."
13 So, ladies and gentlemen, with all
14 due respect to my colleagues' assertion of
15 facts and statistics, the one fact that is
16 unassailable is that we convict innocent
17 people in this state. This amendment contains
18 several components that would enable us to at
19 least say as a Senate, as a body, we are
20 taking every step possible with the technology
21 that is now available to us to ensure that no
22 innocent person is executed in this state.
23 First, this amendment would ensure
24 that our advanced DNA technology is applied to
25 every single case. Currently in the state of
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1 New York, it is not. We would preserve DNA
2 evidence, we would require that every
3 defendant have access to DNA screening of
4 their crime. We would enable people who plead
5 guilty -- and many people who plead guilty to
6 crimes they did not commit, whether you like
7 to believe it or not, the DNA evidence has
8 shown that in case after case. This would
9 enable people who plead guilty and are later
10 exonerated by DNA evidence to have the
11 opportunity to get out.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
13 Senator Schneiderman, may I interrupt you?
14 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Yes,
15 Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
17 Senator Winner, why do you rise?
18 SENATOR WINNER: Senator Morahan,
19 would Senator Schneiderman yield to a
20 question?
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Senator Schneiderman, will you yield?
23 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: If I might
24 just finish my very brief overview summary, I
25 am always glad to engage Senator Winner in a
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1 dialogue, and I look forward to doing so on
2 this issue.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Continue, Senator.
5 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: But just
6 to finish this paragraph, if I may.
7 It is amazing that we do not
8 already have rules requiring the
9 preservation -- not just the preservation of
10 evidence; we preserve DNA evidence. But there
11 is no law requiring that it be catalogued and
12 organized so that you can find it.
13 We have had cases -- and I met
14 several weeks ago with a man who did 22 years.
15 And despite repeated requests that they find
16 his DNA and test it, the DNA warehouse in
17 New York City responded they couldn't find it,
18 it was lost, it was lost. When they finally
19 found it, he was exonerated. He got out after
20 22 years.
21 This amendment would ensure that
22 people who make false confessions have the
23 opportunity to have those reviewed. It would
24 require the videotaping of confessions and
25 overrule the Second Department's ruling in
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1 People v. Birdsong, which indicates that even
2 if DNA evidence exonerates someone, if they
3 pled guilty they can't get out.
4 And this amendment would correct
5 the woeful procedure for eyewitness testimony
6 that operates in many jurisdictions in this
7 state. Seventy-five percent of the cases in
8 which people were wrongfully convicted and
9 later exonerated by DNA evidence involve
10 eyewitness testimony.
11 Everyone here who's tried a
12 criminal case knows how shaky eyewitness
13 testimony is. People testify to remembering
14 all sorts of things that they may or may not
15 have seen. It is a very dangerous straw on
16 which to build a prosecution for the death
17 penalty.
18 So I would urge all of you, my
19 colleagues, whether you support the death
20 penalty or oppose the death penalty, let us
21 not take this step, let us not send to the
22 Assembly a bill for this ultimate sanction
23 that does not also include the provisions to
24 ensure that no person is wrongfully convicted.
25 Keep in mind that every time
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1 someone is wrongfully convicted, the real
2 perpetrator is still out there. This is a
3 pro-law enforcement move, in my view. This
4 ensures that the innocent stay out and that
5 the guilty are apprehended.
6 In the Governor's proposed
7 expanding of the DNA database, there's no
8 point in expanding it -- I support expansion
9 of the database, but there's no point in
10 expanding it unless we pass this amendment
11 requiring that it all be cataloged and
12 organized so we can use it. There's no point
13 in expanding it unless we change the laws to
14 require that every crime scene get the DNA
15 evidence and the fingerprint evidence into the
16 system that our technology provides for.
17 Ladies and gentlemen, let us not
18 execute one innocent person in this state. We
19 have the technology and the ability to make
20 sure that we at least do everything possible
21 to ensure that that does not take place. And
22 by supporting this amendment, you would
23 provide support, I believe, to one of the most
24 important things that we can do in the
25 New York State Senate, which is to provide for
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1 a system of justice for all.
2 I assure you the people who suffer
3 wrongful convictions are not a lot of rich
4 white people. We all know that the imposition
5 of the death penalty in the criminal justice
6 system in general has discriminatory aspects
7 to it by class, by race. People with
8 developmental disabilities more likely to
9 suffer. People with low intelligence are more
10 likely to suffer.
11 The FBI did the only study that I
12 know of where they examined DNA exclusions of
13 defendants in cases for all arrests and
14 indictments of people in violent crimes -- and
15 this was written up back in 1996 -- and they
16 found that for arrests and indictments,
17 24 percent of those arrested and indicted were
18 later excluded by DNA evidence.
19 Now, most of those people were poor
20 people of color. And I'd urge all of you when
21 you say, Well, people doubt the validity of
22 the criminal justice system, people are
23 questioning the police, people aren't
24 cooperating with the police -- maybe we should
25 pass this amendment, add this to your bill and
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1 restore the confidence that the innocent are
2 not convicted and that people are not
3 discriminated against based on class and race
4 by our criminal justice system.
5 This would go a long way, ladies
6 and gentlemen. I hope we can get bipartisan
7 support for this amendment. The Governor has
8 just introduced his own DNA bill, which
9 includes some of these provisions but not all
10 of them. Let us work together. If for some
11 bizarre reason this amendment does not pass
12 this house today and become added to this
13 legislation, let us work together to come up
14 with a solid proposal so that every step is
15 taken.
16 We are joined today by Douglas
17 Warney, who is someone who served nine years
18 for a crime he did not commit in Rochester,
19 New York. He has a history of mental health
20 issues. He knew the victim. There was a lot
21 of circumstantial evidence. He was convicted.
22 Nine years later, he was exonerated.
23 Now, that's the kind of thing that
24 should not ever take place in the state of
25 New York, where we have the technology
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1 available, if this house will act, to ensure
2 it doesn't take place.
3 You all know -- and I know my
4 colleagues from Western New York know the
5 situation regarding Anthony Capozzi. That's
6 why Senator Volker sponsored the bill to move
7 the claims for compensation for those
8 wrongfully imprisoned to the front of the
9 line.
10 We all have heard of Jeffrey
11 Deskovic, made famous in last year's attorney
12 general race because one of the candidates for
13 attorney general, when she was the district
14 attorney in Westchester County, refused his
15 request to run a DNA check. And when the new
16 DA came in and ran the DNA check, he was
17 exonerated.
18 Let's not let that happen. Let's
19 not let one person go to death row in this
20 state for a crime they didn't commit. And
21 until you enact the provisions in this
22 amendment into law, you cannot give that
23 assurance to the public.
24 So I hope everyone here will
25 support this amendment and we can get on to
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1 the debate. Whether you're for the death
2 penalty or against the death penalty, I would
3 hope that there's no one here who believes
4 that the death penalty should be applied to
5 innocent people. And it's incumbent on us to
6 ensure that it never, ever is. I hope that
7 everyone here will support the amendment.
8 And with that, if he still wants to
9 talk with me, I'm happy to chat with the man
10 with the plan, Senator George Winner.
11 SENATOR WINNER: Will Senator
12 Schneiderman yield for a question?
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
14 Senator Schneiderman, after that short
15 paragraph, would you yield to a question?
16 (Laughter.)
17 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Yes. That
18 was just the intro to my lengthy answer to the
19 question. But I'd be happy to yield.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
21 Proceed.
22 SENATOR WINNER: Senator
23 Schneiderman, you made reference repeatedly to
24 the DNA availability. And certainly those
25 that have been exonerated for certain crimes
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1 is a result of, in many instances if not most
2 of the instances, the availability of advanced
3 DNA availability and testing.
4 Can you tell me why, Senator
5 Schneiderman, there is such a reluctance on
6 the part of all of your buddies in the
7 Assembly to expand the DNA database so that
8 more of those types of discoveries of
9 innocence can be accomplished, not only in
10 this instance, in the instance of
11 capital-punishment crimes, but in the instance
12 of all of the variety of crimes that DNA
13 evidence would be able to uncover?
14 Can you tell me why? And also
15 whether or not you're in support of Governor
16 Spitzer's proposal to expand that base.
17 Because in fact I think your
18 conference has been largely in opposition to
19 that in the past. And that as a result, I
20 think that that in and of itself, that type of
21 action has resulted in a number of innocent
22 people not being released from prison.
23 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I'd like
24 to thank the Senator for his question. It's a
25 good question.
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1 As to all my buddies in the
2 Assembly, both of them actually support the
3 expansion of the DNA database.
4 (Laughter.)
5 SENATOR WINNER: Well, that's one
6 more than you had last year.
7 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: That's
8 right, I've doubled the number.
9 As to the rest of the issue, this
10 is a very serious issue. I would urge you,
11 though, to take a look, in all seriousness, at
12 the provisions in the amendment and at the
13 provisions in bills that are sponsored now by
14 Assemblyman Lentol, the chair of the Assembly
15 Codes Committee, who is a supporter, as I am,
16 of expanding the DNA database.
17 The problem that many people have
18 identified is if there is not -- if we don't
19 pass the bill that's again in this amendment
20 to require the organizing, the cataloging of
21 DNA evidence, to require that it be secured so
22 that it cannot be used for any other purpose
23 except criminal justice purposes -- there has
24 been a tremendous concern about it being used
25 for other things; for example, discrimination
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1 in employment. The DNA evidence is held after
2 it shouldn't be held and can be available to
3 be used for other purposes.
4 The issue is the management of this
5 powerful but potentially tremendously
6 dangerous tool. This exposes all of us, from
7 the inside out, to scrutiny that many people
8 have been concerned about. There's some civil
9 liberty issues that have been raised.
10 Now again, I do support the
11 expansion of the DNA database. And I think
12 you're actually incorrect. I think most of
13 the people in my conference have supported
14 expansions of the DNA database. But how,
15 given your desire to expand it, can we not
16 pass this amendment and ensure that everyone
17 has access it, to require that every
18 crime-scene piece of evidence that is
19 susceptible to DNA testing be tested?
20 I mean, DNA evidence should not be
21 available only to those who can hire their own
22 experts. Everyone who is being prosecuted for
23 a serious crime in this state should have
24 access to it. Even people who plead guilty,
25 even people who have eyewitnesses testify
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1 against them. We have to ensure that everyone
2 has access to the proof of guilt or the proof
3 of innocence.
4 So I would urge you that expansion
5 of the database I don't think is that serious
6 a problem right now, because, Senator Winner,
7 as everyone knows, we haven't cataloged the
8 DNA we've already got in the database. We are
9 years behind.
10 So I'm in favor of expanding the
11 database, but let's be real about this. This
12 house will not pass the legislation -- and I'm
13 not singling us out. We need the Assembly to
14 pass this legislation too. But it has been
15 introduced by the chair of Codes Committee.
16 This house will not pass the legislation to
17 provide that DNA evidence be cataloged, be
18 organized, be used in every case where it's
19 possible to exonerate or to convict.
20 Let's do that first, and let's do
21 that today. Let's add this to this death
22 penalty bill, which I have a sneaking
23 suspicion may pass this house. And if it
24 does, what a strong message you will be
25 sending to the Assembly and to the Governor --
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1 whose bill I think is a good start but needs
2 some work -- that we don't ever want to see an
3 innocent person put to death in New York
4 State, and we don't want to see any innocent
5 people locked up, as Mr. Warney was, because
6 of the failure of this Legislature to provide
7 the guidelines and the resources to our
8 criminal justice system to keep innocent
9 people out of jail.
10 SENATOR WINNER: Mr. President,
11 will Senator Schneiderman yield to a question?
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
13 Senator, will you continue to yield?
14 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I will be
15 happy to yield for another question.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
17 Proceed, Senator.
18 SENATOR WINNER: Senator
19 Schneiderman, in the event that your amendment
20 were to prevail, would you then support the
21 bill?
22 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Through
23 you, Mr. President, I would not, because of
24 issue that I will raise later.
25 But I do believe that with or
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1 without my support, there's a significant
2 possibility that it will pass.
3 And I would urge all of my
4 colleagues that before you take the step to
5 impose the state-sanctioned death penalty, you
6 have to take every step possible to ensure
7 that no innocent person is ever subject to it.
8 So there will be people voting for
9 and against this bill who are in support of my
10 amendment. I would think that in good
11 conscience every member of this house should
12 support an amendment to provide every step
13 possible to ensure that New York State never
14 executes an innocent man or woman.
15 Thank you, Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
17 you, Senator.
18 On the amendment, those Senators in
19 agreement please signify by raising your
20 hands.
21 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
22 agreement are Senators Adams, Breslin, Diaz,
23 Duane, Gonzalez, Hassell-Thompson, Huntley,
24 L. Krueger, Montgomery, Oppenheimer, Perkins,
25 Sabini, Sampson, Savino, Schneiderman,
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1 Serrano, Smith, Stavisky, Stewart-Cousins,
2 Thompson and Valesky.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
4 amendment is not agreed to.
5 Senator Diaz.
6 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you,
7 Mr. President.
8 I rise to express my opposition to
9 this bill. And what I base my opposition is
10 two -- for two reasons. First, it is morally
11 wrong, and, second, it is humanly and socially
12 unjust.
13 First I have to tell you that I am
14 the father, the proud father of a daughter who
15 happens to be a police sergeant in the City of
16 New York, and her husband is a retired police
17 is the too. So if we look at this bill from
18 that side of the story, I have reason to
19 support the bill. But I'm not.
20 As a father, I see the anguish, the
21 agony, the desperation of parents of police
22 officers when they go out on their duties and
23 you don't even know if they're going to come
24 back. So yes, I understand the intent of the
25 piece of legislation to protect the life of
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1 police officers.
2 But one of the fellow Senators here
3 gave us so many dates and so many reasons why
4 to support the legislation, and he gave me
5 about four or five cases where a police
6 officer was shot and killed. I have to tell
7 you that for any one of those cases of a
8 police officer being shot, I could give you 15
9 or 20 cases of a bodeguero being shot, of a
10 taxi driver being shot, of a senior citizen
11 being shot, of those young children that have
12 been raped and killed.
13 So for every police officer that
14 gets shot -- and my daughter is a police
15 officer -- which I understand, I understand
16 the agony and the anguish of the parent. I
17 don't ever want that to happen to my daughter
18 or to any other police officer.
19 But so many other people have been
20 killed. As I said before, bodegueros, store
21 owners, taxi drivers, children, young guys,
22 women, women being marked for death by their
23 husbands sometimes, or vice versa. So there
24 are many other people that die.
25 And what is the irony of this?
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1 That the bill only calls for the death penalty
2 on those who kill police officers or peace
3 officers. That is sending a message, sending
4 a message to the criminals out there that if
5 you are looking for someone to kill, you're
6 better off killing a bodeguero or you're
7 better off killing a woman or you're better
8 off killing a child or you are better off
9 killing a senior citizen. Or killing a taxi
10 driver, you're better off. So don't go and
11 kill a police officer, because you're going to
12 get the death penalty. Go kill somebody else,
13 and you might go free.
14 So the bill, the bill is sending a
15 message, is humanly wrong, sending a message
16 that the life of a police officer is worth
17 more than the life of a child and than the
18 life of any other human being, of any other
19 resident of New York State.
20 If you're going to do that, be fair
21 to everybody. Every single life is sacred.
22 Life is precious. Not only police officers --
23 I understand my daughter, it's my only
24 daughter. Can you imagine what would happen
25 if somebody killed my daughter? God forbid.
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1 God bless her wherever she is. I know what's
2 going to happen. I know the agony. I know
3 what would go through me.
4 So yes, I want the police officers
5 to be protected. But not saying that their
6 life is worth more than the bodegueros in my
7 district and in the city of New York, and the
8 taxi drivers, the gypsy drivers, and the young
9 people in our district that have been killed,
10 they have been killed from left to right.
11 So it is humanly wrong for me to
12 support this bill. But it's not only for that
13 reason that I'm opposing this bill; it's also
14 because I am a pastor. I am a preacher, an
15 evangelical Pentecostal minister. And my
16 religion teaches that life is sacred
17 everywhere.
18 What I don't understand, I don't
19 understand that, I want somebody here to
20 explain to me is that we don't know what is
21 late-term abortion, or what they call partial
22 birth abortion. We all know what it means.
23 We all know what it is.
24 Partial birth abortion is when a
25 woman gives birth after nine months and they
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1 take out the baby halfway and then if they
2 decide that they don't want the baby, they
3 kill the baby. But because the baby has not
4 been born completely, only partial, so they
5 say it's okay, it was not alive.
6 That's alive. That is alive. And
7 I don't understand how come some people oppose
8 the death penalty and are in favor of partial
9 birth abortion. That doesn't make sense.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
11 Senator, will you suffer an interruption?
12 SENATOR DIAZ: No, no, after I
13 finish. I am --
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
15 Senator Montgomery, why do you rise?
16 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Mr.
17 President, would Senator Diaz answer a
18 question?
19 SENATOR DIAZ: I will answer all
20 the questions that Senator Montgomery want to
21 ask me, or anybody else, after I finish my
22 exposition on partial birth abortion.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
24 Senator will not yield at this time.
25 SENATOR DIAZ: Partial birth
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1 abortion is a crime. It's killing. It's
2 murder. So if you are against partial birth
3 abortion, you're supposed to be against the
4 death penalty. But if you are in favor of the
5 death penalty, you're supposed to be against
6 partial birth abortion.
7 So it doesn't make sense. That's
8 why I'm opposing this bill, because it's
9 humanly wrong and because it's morally wrong.
10 Life is sacred everywhere, at all stages of
11 life. See those children there that just
12 came? Look at those children. So that bill
13 says that if anybody kills one of those
14 children, if anybody kills one of those
15 children, they don't get the death sentence.
16 But if somebody kills a police officer, then
17 they get the death sentence.
18 No. It's wrong. So, ladies and
19 gentlemen, I'm here to say that yes, I'm the
20 father of a police officer, a sergeant, a
21 woman, my daughter, my only daughter. And I
22 understand the basis or the intent of the
23 bill. But I have to oppose, strongly oppose
24 the bill, because it does not cover everybody.
25 It makes some life worth more than others, and
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1 that is wrong.
2 And also I oppose the bill because
3 I believe -- I'm pro-life, I believe in life.
4 Life is sacred from conception to the end. So
5 if you kill somebody, if you kill somebody,
6 then you kill everybody. If you oppose some
7 kind of murder, then you have to oppose the
8 whole life.
9 So, Mr. President, I thank you for
10 your attention. And if Senator Montgomery
11 wants to ask me any question, I am willing and
12 able to answer whatever questions she wants to
13 ask me.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
15 Senator Montgomery, do you still wish to ask
16 the Senator to yield?
17 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Mr.
18 President, through you, I know that Senator
19 Diaz identified his credentials as a minister,
20 and certainly we're appreciative of that.
21 I just also wanted to inquire of
22 him what are his credentials as a physician.
23 Because he was describing a medical procedure,
24 and I just wondered if he also is a physician.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Senator Diaz, do you choose to answer the
2 question?
3 SENATOR DIAZ: I am not a
4 physician. I am not a doctor.
5 I only know that partial birth
6 abortion is when the baby is almost fully
7 born, halfway out -- halfway out -- and the
8 mother has the opportunity to check the baby
9 and if the mother decides that she doesn't
10 want the baby, then they kill the baby.
11 I don't have to be a doctor -- I
12 don't have to be a doctor to know that that's
13 a fully life -- all fully, completely life.
14 So I don't have to be a doctor to know that.
15 And now you're going to tell me,
16 Oh, that's to protect the life of the woman.
17 To protect the life of the woman if the baby
18 is already halfway out, tell me that the woman
19 has been already -- and by the way, in every
20 other stage of birth, the life of the woman
21 has been protected. You don't need partial
22 birth abortion to protect the life of the
23 woman. The life of the woman is always
24 taken -- always taken first.
25 So thank you. Another question?
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
2 Senator Diaz, let me just respectfully remind
3 you and Senator Montgomery that that is really
4 not on the bill that's on the floor. And I'm
5 not about to tell you what to do, what not to
6 do. But if she has no more questions, you now
7 can sit down.
8 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you, sir.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Senator Griffo.
11 SENATOR GRIFFO: Thank you,
12 Mr. President.
13 Did you know that 1,533 law
14 enforcement officers were killed in the last
15 10 years? That's an average death of one
16 every 58 hours. Approximately during the
17 hours of 8:00 to 10:00 every night, some of
18 the most concerned hours -- because during
19 that period we see the most killings of police
20 officers, 8:00 to 10:00 each evening.
21 The average age of those police
22 officers that were killed over the last
23 century is about 38 years old. The youngest
24 of them, seven of them, were 19 years of age.
25 And since the court ruling, if we look at the
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1 four years prior to the Court of Appeals
2 ruling, there were five officers killed in the
3 line of duty. Since the court made its
4 decision in 2004, over 13 officers have been
5 killed, almost three times the amount prior to
6 the ruling of the Court of Appeals.
7 Across this state, men and women
8 who serve and protect us are in danger as
9 never before. The chief of police from Utica,
10 a long-time state police officer and public
11 servant, echoed what Senator Golden said. He
12 called it open season. Because never before
13 have individuals in this society been so
14 willing and ready to pull the trigger, because
15 there's an absence of fear and respect of laws
16 that govern each and every one of us.
17 In the last year I have attended
18 two funerals for police officers in my
19 community, a community that really cares and
20 has a good quality of life. Both of these
21 young police officers, Officer Corr from
22 New Hartford and Officer Lindsey from Utica,
23 were in the prime of their lives. They did
24 nothing wrong but serve the public to the best
25 of their ability.
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1 Officer Lindsey was assassinated
2 about a month ago, shot directly and killed in
3 cold blood. Officer Corr responded to a
4 robbery, from an individual who had 50 prior
5 arrests, and was killed in a gun battle.
6 Officer Corr as well as Officer
7 Lindsey had families, and many of those family
8 members, whether they were parents or
9 children, when they said goodbye to their
10 loved one, knowing that there was a risk, did
11 not expect that they would not see them again.
12 In fact, in Officer Corr's
13 situation, a young child under five, this
14 young girl, when she sees police officers
15 gather a year later, still looks to see if her
16 daddy is in that line.
17 I can tell you today, as I have
18 spoken to families and as I have talked to law
19 enforcement officials within my community,
20 that they believe it is imperative that we not
21 only give them equipment and resources but we
22 put into law protection that is necessary as
23 they go out and do their jobs. As we debate
24 this bill in this chamber, hundreds and
25 hundreds of men and women are on the street to
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1 protect us, men and women of law enforcement,
2 and they expect that we do what we can to
3 ensure that we protect them.
4 And I do believe that this capital
5 punishment bill will be a deterrent and does
6 provide for the ultimate sanction because of
7 the act of violence that is committed by these
8 criminals upon these good law enforcement
9 officers who serve and protect us on a regular
10 basis.
11 I applaud Senator Golden for his
12 initiative. And I want to thank Senator
13 Volker for his long-time career as a champion
14 for the rights of law enforcement and trying
15 to protect them in doing the right thing. And
16 this legislation, in my opinion, is the right
17 thing.
18 I hope today that we cannot only
19 stand here together and bring this bill to
20 passage, but that we can use everything within
21 our resources to continue to convince our
22 colleagues in the other house and the
23 leadership in that house that they should do
24 likewise, that they should allow this vote to
25 take place so that the elected representatives
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1 of the people have an opportunity to express
2 their opinion to represent the will of the
3 majority of the people of this state.
4 There are many graves along
5 hillsides that cry out for justice. We have
6 the opportunity today to begin to take a step
7 to do what's right to ensure that we continue
8 to send the message that is necessary that we
9 will put in place laws to protect law
10 enforcement, that they will serve as a
11 deterrent, and that you will suffer the
12 ultimate sanction if you commit this act of
13 reckless, cowardly violence against those who
14 have been sworn to protect us.
15 Thank you, Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
17 you, Senator.
18 Senator Winner.
19 SENATOR WINNER: Thank you,
20 Mr. President.
21 On March 1 of 2006, Trooper Andrew
22 Sperr was on a routine patrol in the town of
23 Big Flats in Chemung County in the Southern
24 Tier of New York when he came upon a vehicle
25 turning off of a road on to a more remote area
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1 and thought that there was something amiss
2 because the license plate on the back of the
3 vehicle was hanging down.
4 Little did he know that only
5 minutes before that vehicle was apprehended by
6 Trooper Sperr that the two men inside had been
7 participating in a robbery of a branch of a
8 local bank in Big Flats, and as a result they
9 were attempting to drive away and change
10 vehicles a short distance away from where
11 Trooper Sperr put on his lights and pulled
12 that vehicle over.
13 Trooper Sperr was totally unaware
14 of what would befall him subsequent to that,
15 when in fact an individual by the name of
16 Andrew Horton opened fire on Trooper Sperr as
17 he approached the vehicle, striking him a
18 couple of times, and Trooper Sperr returned
19 fire, wounding both of the people in the
20 vehicle.
21 But at the same time, Trooper Sperr
22 also fell to the ground. And then
23 unfortunately, before the individuals left the
24 scene, Andrew Horton went back over to Trooper
25 Sperr as he's lying on the ground with his
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1 knees up, obviously severely wounded, and
2 executed him right there.
3 I don't know -- you know, I'm not
4 really worried about whether or not the DNA
5 was right, I'm not really worried about
6 whether or not there was an Innocence Project
7 in place, I'm not worried about any of all
8 these wonderful pronouncements as far as we're
9 concerned about those defendants. In fact,
10 they admitted fundamentally their crimes and
11 were convicted, both of them, of their
12 participation in that act.
13 Now, there's been some reference to
14 the fact of the testimony in that proceeding
15 in the Chemung County Court in September of
16 2006. And you know, there's always been a lot
17 of allegations that there's no deterrence
18 effect with regard to capital punishment. And
19 certainly we've heard that over and over and
20 over from the opponents. And sometimes they
21 can be very persuasive, because it's been
22 difficult to get your hands on direct
23 empirical knowledge of the existence of the
24 deterrence of capital punishment in a specific
25 action.
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1 So you can see how astonished I was
2 when I picked up a newspaper one day, the day
3 after the testimony of Andrew Horton's driver
4 in that vehicle, a guy named Brian Adams,
5 another real great citizen, who in his trial
6 made some rather startling representations as
7 to what went on and what Andrew Horton did in
8 fact tell him.
9 And just for the record, I think it
10 might be helpful if I just repeated a couple
11 of those questions so that you can see for
12 yourself whether or not Andrew Sperr, Trooper
13 Andy Sperr might be alive today if in fact we
14 had capital punishment in New York State. The
15 questions go as follows.
16 Question -- these are to Brian
17 Adams, the defendant in that -- or, excuse me,
18 a witness in that proceeding, the trial of
19 Andrew Horton for the murder of Andrew Sperr.
20 Brian Adams: "I thought it was a
21 regular traffic stop." That's the answer.
22 "All right. Now, as the lights are
23 on and he's behind you and before you pull
24 over, what does Tony say to you?"
25 "Answer: Do I want to do a little
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1 bit of time or a lot of time."
2 "Question: Okay. Did that mean
3 anything to you at that point?"
4 "Answer: Not at that point."
5 "Question: All right. What else
6 did he tell you?"
7 "Answer: That he was going to
8 shoot the cop."
9 "Question: All right. Did he
10 mention the death penalty?"
11 "Answer: Yes."
12 "Question: What did he say about
13 the death penalty?"
14 "Answer: That New York don't have
15 the death penalty, that they can just give him
16 life in prison."
17 Now, we all know that he went on
18 and shot that officer, and gunfire was
19 exchanged. And I also made representations to
20 you as to what occurred in the final moments
21 of Andrew Sperr's life.
22 And here's the question: "All
23 right. At some point did you attempt to see
24 where the trooper was?"
25 "Answer: Yes."
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1 "Question: And where did you see
2 him?"
3 "Answer: Laying on the ground by
4 his vehicle."
5 "Question: Okay. And at that
6 point, what was he doing?"
7 "Answer: Laying on his back."
8 "Question: Okay. Was he
9 shooting?"
10 "Answer: No."
11 "Question: Did there come a time
12 in which you and Mr. Horton made a run for the
13 Taurus?"
14 "Answer: Yes."
15 "Question: Now, as you made a run
16 for the Taurus, did you look to your left to
17 see the condition of the trooper?"
18 "Answer: Yes. I looked over and
19 he was laying on the ground not moving."
20 "Question: Okay. What about his
21 knees, legs?"
22 "Answer: They were up in the air."
23 "Question: When you say 'up in the
24 air,' you mean bent?"
25 "Answer: Yes. His feet were on
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1 the ground."
2 "Question: Okay. Then at some
3 point when you reached the Taurus, did
4 something happen?"
5 "Answer: Yes. Mr. Horton fired at
6 the trooper again."
7 "Question: Okay. Did he say
8 something after he fired at the trooper?"
9 "Answer: Yes, he said he killed
10 the mother -- you know what."
11 Now, my heart really bleeds for
12 that guy. And I'm sure that he had all the
13 due process in the world. But one thing he
14 would have had if we had capital punishment on
15 the books was the appropriate punishment for
16 that behavior. And that's unfortunate that we
17 don't have it.
18 Not only do we have empirical
19 evidence of the fact that Andrew Sperr may be
20 alive if we had capital punishment in this
21 state, we also have a clear indication of an
22 individual who would have deserved to receive
23 the ultimate punishment for the actions that
24 he committed.
25 Now, I know that Senator Bruno
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1 mentioned that it's unfortunate that the
2 Governor does not put in the same amount of
3 effort that he put in --
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Excuse
5 me, Senator.
6 Senator Serrano, why do you rise?
7 SENATOR SERRANO: Will Senator
8 Winner yield for a question, please.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Senator Winner, will you yield?
11 SENATOR WINNER: Yes, I'll yield.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
13 Senator yields.
14 SENATOR SERRANO: Thank you very
15 much.
16 Senator, very quickly, have you
17 ever witnessed an execution, whether live or
18 on videotape?
19 SENATOR WINNER: No, I have not,
20 Senator.
21 SENATOR SERRANO: Okay. Would
22 you agree that --
23 SENATOR WINNER: Are you asking
24 me to yield again?
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
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1 Senator, do you wish the Senator to continue
2 to yield?
3 SENATOR SERRANO: Will he yield?
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
5 Senator, do you yield?
6 SENATOR WINNER: Yes.
7 SENATOR SERRANO: Thank you.
8 Through you, Mr. President, I apologize.
9 Would you say that a person who is
10 deranged in the manner in which you're
11 expressing so eloquently would have any regard
12 for any human life, including their own?
13 SENATOR WINNER: Senator, I can
14 only tell you that in fact the testimony of
15 Brian Adams indicated that Mr. Horton
16 specifically, in a lucid moment, indicated --
17 without any way, shape or form of being in
18 doubt -- that he was going to kill that
19 trooper, particularly because there wasn't
20 capital punishment in New York State.
21 And that was the testimony in
22 court, under oath, for -- obviously not by a
23 particularly wonderfully credible individual
24 as far as his character, however. But he had
25 no reason to make that story up. There was no
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1 offer with regard to testimony to elicit any
2 kind of representations with regard to any
3 plea bargaining, as far as making any
4 representations as far as the existence of
5 capital punishment. It made absolutely no
6 sense.
7 He offered what is very, very
8 credible as far as the motive of Mr. Horton in
9 killing that trooper at that time, and that
10 was because he wanted -- he thought that that
11 would be the way to get away and also he would
12 not suffer capital punishment as a result.
13 And also I can tell you, Senator,
14 that there was no allegations of any
15 incompetency of Andrew Horton with regard to
16 his ability to stand trial and no evidence of
17 mental defect or the like. He was a perfectly
18 rational, deliberate, terrible person.
19 And I might also ask you,
20 parenthetically, Senator, in response also,
21 have you ever witnessed a cop killing?
22 SENATOR SERRANO: No.
23 SENATOR WINNER: Well, I haven't
24 witnessed an execution either.
25 SENATOR SERRANO: Okay.
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1 Mr. President, will the Senator continue to
2 yield?
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
4 Senator Winner, will you continue to yield?
5 SENATOR WINNER: Yes, I yield.
6 SENATOR SERRANO: Okay. So would
7 you say that a person who is a killer in the
8 fashion in which you've just described, the
9 horrific fashion -- you used the word "lucid."
10 Would you consider that person who can
11 engage -- who can bring themselves to do
12 something that no one else here really could,
13 would you really consider them to be lucid
14 people?
15 SENATOR WINNER: Senator, I don't
16 even know whether or not -- there are
17 standards in the law as far as determinations
18 as to whether or not someone is competent to
19 stand trial or whether the actions that
20 someone had committed were in fact as a result
21 of extreme emotional distress and/or certainly
22 whether or not they had some mental defect or
23 inability to understand right or wrong.
24 Those are not the standards that
25 were applicable in this particular instance.
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1 None of those were ever raised as far as the
2 actions of Andrew Horton.
3 Andrew Horton's just a bad person
4 who deserved capital punishment as a result of
5 the action that he committed. And as a
6 result, I think that under those circumstances
7 the punishment for his act of murdering
8 Trooper Andrew Sperr certainly warranted
9 capital punishment. And not only as a
10 punishment, but certainly would have -- as I
11 indicated, the existence of capital punishment
12 may very well have acted as a deterrent to
13 have prevented his death.
14 SENATOR SERRANO: Mr. President,
15 through you, will the Senator continue to
16 yield?
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
18 Senator Winner, do you continue to yield?
19 SENATOR WINNER: Sure.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
21 Senator yields.
22 SENATOR SERRANO: Thank you.
23 So you're saying two different
24 things, Senator. On the one hand you're
25 saying that this person deserved capital
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1 punishment, and then on the other hand you're
2 saying that it would be a deterrent. You seem
3 to be mixing apples and oranges.
4 SENATOR WINNER: I don't know why
5 I'm not --
6 SENATOR SERRANO: Vengeance, are
7 you addressing --
8 SENATOR WINNER: I don't know
9 why -- never mind, I'll let you ask your
10 question.
11 SENATOR SERRANO: Okay.
12 Vengeance and deterrence really are
13 not necessarily the same thing. So would you
14 say that having a death penalty would be a
15 deterrent for someone who is so depraved and
16 so obviously willing to die, if they're
17 willing to kill someone, how would it make
18 them -- if they have no regard for human life,
19 how will saving their own life mean anything
20 to them?
21 For you and I, it would. But the
22 question I'm trying to ask, do you really
23 believe that it's a deterrent if someone is so
24 sick that they would kill a police officer?
25 SENATOR WINNER: Senator, in
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1 response to your question, I don't want to
2 reread the testimony. I'm only giving you the
3 words of Andrew Horton as expressed to Brian
4 Adams, who was his co-bad guy.
5 And, you know, you can say all you
6 want, this is what he said and this is -- and
7 what he said was that he asked, inquired
8 whether or not New York had a death penalty.
9 And implied, without any question, that his
10 intention was to kill that trooper because
11 there was no death penalty in New York State.
12 That's what he said. You can try
13 to twist it around whatever way you want to,
14 but I'm reading it and -- I almost fell off
15 the chair when I saw this testimony myself,
16 but there it is. And it says without any
17 hesitation whatsoever that that was a
18 motivation of Andrew Horton to kill Trooper
19 Andrew Sperr.
20 Therefore, it only is logical that
21 if in fact we had capital punishment, that he
22 might not have done it.
23 SENATOR SERRANO: Mr. President,
24 will the Senator yield for another question?
25 SENATOR WINNER: Sure.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
2 Senator will yield for another question.
3 SENATOR SERRANO: So, Senator
4 Winner, since the data that we have from other
5 states in our nation regarding the death
6 penalty does not support your assertion that
7 it is a deterrent, would you then conclude
8 that imposing a death penalty is more of a
9 need for vengeance or it is really a
10 deterrent? Honestly.
11 SENATOR WINNER: If I may
12 respond, Senator.
13 I didn't say and I don't agree that
14 the evidence from other states does not
15 demonstrate that having capital punishment is
16 not a deterrent. Senator Golden I think amply
17 pointed out the statistics with regard to
18 other states that have capital punishment,
19 indicating that in fact there is a
20 significantly lower amount of assaults and
21 murders of police officers in those states
22 that have capital punishment. So therefore I
23 don't accept your premise.
24 As far as vengeance is concerned, I
25 can only say that that's for someone of a
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1 little higher authority to deal with than
2 myself.
3 All I can tell you is that in this
4 instance, I can tell you that there is no
5 question that this evidence is that capital
6 punishment is a deterrent in this particular
7 case. And that's why I cited it as being as
8 startling with regard to its demonstration of
9 deterrent fact. And therefore, under those
10 circumstances, I think the testimony speaks
11 for itself.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
13 you, Senator.
14 SENATOR SERRANO: Thank you. No
15 further questions.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
17 you, Senator.
18 SENATOR WINNER: I just want to
19 continue briefly on the bill.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
21 Senator Winner.
22 SENATOR WINNER: Thank you,
23 Mr. President.
24 Again, I think that Senator Bruno
25 indicated that it would be helpful if the
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1 Governor, who purports to be in support of
2 this measure, would utilize the same amount of
3 energy in establishing priorities that he has
4 used on some other issues that are certainly,
5 I think, vastly less significant as far as
6 their impact and importance to the people of
7 the state of New York than having a deterrent
8 measure in place to provide for protection for
9 our police officers.
10 And then lastly, Mr. President, you
11 know, the Assembly has been playing an
12 interesting cute little game here of having it
13 both ways. On the one hand, they have voted
14 and put in place capital punishment in 1995,
15 as this house did as well and was signed into
16 law by Governor Pataki, yet some of the same
17 people that voted for that and put it in place
18 are out there now purportedly changing their
19 minds and not willing to correct that which
20 the Court of Appeals determined in its
21 decision in People v. LaValle that set forth
22 the provisions that the instructions were
23 invalid.
24 You know, the problem I have is
25 that if you want to be intellectually honest
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1 with regard to that position, repeal, have the
2 courage to repeal capital punishment. If you
3 want to fix it, it's on the books, it has a
4 technical glitch, then repeal it. It's still
5 there. It just needs to be fixed as far as
6 the instructions are concerned.
7 There has never been any attempt to
8 try to take it off the books. In fact, I
9 don't think such a measure, if it were put on
10 the floor of the Assembly, would have a
11 ghost's chance of passage.
12 In fact, as has been pointed out,
13 if you put this provision on the floor of the
14 New York State Assembly, a body that I served
15 in for 26 years, I can tell you that without a
16 doubt this bill would pass overwhelmingly.
17 Mr. President, thank you for your
18 indulgence.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
20 you, Senator.
21 Senator Volker.
22 SENATOR VOLKER: Mr. President,
23 let's understand what we're talking about.
24 We're not talking about, by the way, voting
25 for the death penalty or against the death
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1 penalty.
2 I mean, the problem I think is --
3 and Eric, you made all the arguments for
4 southern states and all that stuff about race
5 and so forth, which we have refuted on this
6 floor year after year after year. This has
7 state has one of the best records for not only
8 executions but for any kind of criminal
9 proceedings on race and so forth in the
10 country.
11 Senator Diaz, I just want to tell
12 you, if your daughter is a police officer,
13 she's a thousand times more likely to be
14 murdered than the average person. Police
15 officers are -- I forget -- the numbers are
16 incredible on assaults. I only say that
17 because you should be aware of that.
18 But let me just say what this is
19 about. What this is about is -- and I'll go
20 into a little bit of the history before this.
21 We are voting, and it comes in about three
22 lines. It says the deadlock provision. And
23 this happens when somebody has already gone
24 through two trials. The first trial is to
25 find guilt or innocence. The second trial is
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1 to find what the sentence should be.
2 If the jury cannot agree, then
3 presently the law, which by a four-to-three
4 vote by the Court of Appeals -- which I think
5 most scholars truly believe was just a way for
6 them to get out of doing the death penalty --
7 was that the person would be sentenced to 20
8 to 25 years to life.
9 Now, it would seem to me that
10 logically, frankly, the person -- if they're
11 that avid to keep them in jail, they would say
12 either life without parole or the death
13 penalty. But the court, looking for an out --
14 and unfortunately that out came right here.
15 Rick Dollinger was standing right over there,
16 Senator Dollinger, when we debated the death
17 penalty. And they were desperately looking
18 for something to get on us. Remember, the
19 vast majority of people -- in fact, I think
20 Rick voted for it, if I'm not mistaken. I'm
21 pretty sure he was one of them who voted for
22 it.
23 But he argued that provision. And
24 I said: "Rick, you mean to tell me that you
25 really believe" -- and by the way, we were
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1 both quoted in the decision, the People v.
2 LaValle decision. That's one of the few times
3 I've ever been quoted in a Court of Appeals
4 decision. I would have been impressed if they
5 had have found in my behalf, but they didn't
6 find in my behalf.
7 They said that somehow it might
8 influence the jury, because by deadlocking
9 they would then look to the death penalty
10 instead of letting him out. I am not exactly
11 sure -- that kind of logic, to me, it's jury
12 nullification logic is what it is. It's a
13 Court of Appeals that didn't trust juries.
14 Except they really didn't -- it wasn't they
15 didn't trust the jury, they just were afraid
16 to go through with the death penalty.
17 So what we're doing today is
18 basically saying instead of after the deadlock
19 provision the sentence would be life, meaning
20 50 to 25 to life, it will be life without
21 parole. That's what we're doing today.
22 That's it. That's the big deal. That's it.
23 Now, why is this bill -- and this
24 bill, by the way, is interesting because in
25 1973 -- and let me just give you a quick
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1 resume. My father was on the Bartlett
2 Commission in 1965 when the murder rate was
3 very low and the violent crime rate was very
4 low. There wasn't a lot of drugs around then,
5 either. Nelson Rockefeller was the governor,
6 very liberal governor. New York at the time,
7 the city, had a very low crime rate.
8 So the governor asked Dick
9 Bartlett, who later became the head of Albany
10 Law School, to do the Bartlett Commission to
11 recommend getting rid of the death penalty.
12 So they did. They recommended getting rid of
13 the death penalty.
14 My father did the minority report.
15 He came home -- and I can remember it like it
16 was yesterday -- he slumped in his chair and
17 said, "Well, now the murder rate will begin to
18 rise and the violent crime rate eventually
19 will rise with it, and on will come abortion,
20 just as day follows night."
21 Because once the death penalty
22 goes, abortion will come right afterwards.
23 The death penalty is sort of an
24 acknowledgment -- the lack of death penalty --
25 that we don't really care that much, whether
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1 we like it or not, that we are willing to not
2 punish criminals to the greatest extent.
3 Now, none of us want to believe
4 that, but it's a fact. So the murder rate
5 soared. And then he said, by the way, before
6 he died: "Dale, someday -- and I hope you're
7 one of the people that restores it -- someday
8 the murder rate will get so bad, and the
9 violent crime rate, that it will be restored.
10 And the violent crime rate and the murder rate
11 will then drop off, and then -- I hope you're
12 not there -- someday then people will want to
13 get rid of it again."
14 And he said it might even be the
15 courts, because our courts have not reacted
16 well to this. Because we have a nature here
17 in New York that has tough laws but not the
18 strongest judges in the world as far as
19 enacting it.
20 In 1973 I did what amounts to this
21 bill, without the two juries and so forth.
22 And I did it because the Supreme Court of the
23 United States said this was the way to do it.
24 We did it, it was signed into law. Within a
25 year, they reversed themselves and said no.
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1 And the Supreme Court -- and then
2 in the Fitzpatrick case -- Fitzpatrick was a
3 wonderful guy. He murdered a Boy Scout
4 leader, a Boy Scout and the Boy Scout's
5 father. He looked like a studious-looking
6 guy. You see him, I mean you wouldn't believe
7 it. Very bright fellow. But he was a
8 murderer.
9 Anyways, after that we kept -- then
10 it was reversed again in the Fitzpatrick case.
11 Lemuel Smith, who killed five people and
12 eventually murdered Donna Payant in the prison
13 system, he got -- he's still in prison, by the
14 way. One of the most dangerous inmates you're
15 ever going to see, because he's at least a
16 six-time killer.
17 And this bill, by the way, will at
18 least remedy that, so at least he got --
19 something you could do with him. He could
20 kill ten people and there's not a darn thing
21 you can do unless this provision is put back
22 into law.
23 So anyways, we went to '94, we
24 restored the death penalty by a huge vote.
25 The murder rate dropped off dramatically. I
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1 find it very hard to believe -- anybody that
2 does not believe in deterrence had better take
3 a look. At one of the police memorials here
4 about five years ago, not one police officer
5 was killed. Not one. And we were amazed.
6 That was unusual. But police officer killings
7 dropped off dramatically all over this state
8 after we restored the death penalty.
9 The one thing we know -- and by the
10 way, the other states, that's all hogwash. I
11 mean, it all fluctuates all over the place.
12 And by the way, New York has had the best
13 record on innocence and guilty of any state in
14 the union.
15 And one of the things they don't
16 tell you, you talk about the Capozzi case.
17 The Capozzi case was a rape case. If it had
18 been a death penalty case, I think he probably
19 would have got off, almost certainly. Because
20 we look at these cases so closely.
21 There's never been a person in this
22 state executed -- and we've looked into them
23 back and forth and, I mean, you can't
24 imagine -- where there's ever been strong
25 evidence. Oh, there's been allegations.
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1 By the way, there's one thing I
2 want to tell you about Illinois, the 11 people
3 that were exonerated because of DNA. We know
4 one, for sure, murdered the guy. Remember,
5 what DNA does, it eliminates the evidence. It
6 doesn't necessarily mean the person didn't
7 commit the crime. In fact, some people that
8 looked at these cases have told me that seven
9 of those 11 people actually committed the
10 crimes, it's just the evidence was bad.
11 In the "wilding" case in New York
12 City, I mean, the problem was they came up
13 with a DNA they couldn't account for, so they
14 found these people innocent. They confessed
15 publicly. That's a problem.
16 The Innocence Project has this big
17 problem. They want to find people innocent.
18 I understand that. But they don't want to
19 find people guilty. They have always fooled
20 around with DNA and attacked DNA on the basis
21 of the fact that it might be used in criminal
22 cases against people who are guilty. I've
23 always had a problem with that.
24 Listen, I'm the guy that started
25 DNA. I'm the guy that did the first bills.
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1 And I remember the defense attorneys were all
2 against it. Why? Because they thought people
3 were going to be prosecuted. And I said,
4 "Well, what about innocent people? We're
5 going to find some people innocent." That
6 didn't matter at the time, because they didn't
7 realize how extensive this could be.
8 By the way, the provision that
9 Senator Schneiderman talked about, a little
10 modified version is in a bill which we're
11 going to pass. I just want you to know. I
12 mean, we're concerned about that. We're going
13 to do that. We're never going to let the
14 possibility of somebody be executed here go by
15 the boards. That's not going to happen.
16 It's a little different than -- in
17 fact, I was just talking to Joe Massena, who's
18 our criminal justice guy, and I said, Is that
19 the same, pretty well the same one? And he
20 said pretty well. It's a little bit
21 different.
22 But don't worry, we're concerned
23 about DNA quality just as you are. I mean,
24 the last thing in the world I ever want, I'll
25 tell you that right now -- and probably I
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1 could have if I put enough heat on, because --
2 is get the death penalty defense people out of
3 the budget. I probably could have, because
4 the Pataki people wanted to. The reason we
5 didn't was I knew we were going to restore the
6 death penalty ultimately.
7 And you know we have the best
8 defense operation in the country in this
9 state. Even though we don't actually have a
10 death penalty now, we still have an operation
11 going that moves along while we're waiting for
12 it to be restored, which I believe will be
13 this year. I'm one of those foolish people,
14 maybe -- I'm not foolish. This bill is going
15 to become law, I'll tell you right now.
16 Why is it just for police and
17 correction officers? Because it's the fastest
18 way to get it through the Assembly. I'm not
19 kidding anybody.
20 I think that Governor Spitzer
21 eventually will put the pressure on the
22 Assembly, as he did on workers' comp, civil
23 confinement. You wait and see.
24 So what you're voting today is to
25 decide whether you want to be part of a change
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1 in this bill. The next thing you should know
2 is there's a new person in town on the Court
3 of Appeals. He's a solid guy who is -- I'm
4 not telling you that he's pro-death penalty
5 necessarily, but I know him very well and I
6 believe he'll do the right thing. And I can't
7 imagine him not voting in favor of this
8 change.
9 By the way, the reason we haven't
10 had these bills before this is because we were
11 waiting for the Taylor case to be decided. I
12 won't get into the detail. There's a case
13 before the Court of Appeals called Taylor
14 where the judge and the prosecutor anticipated
15 the Court of Appeals was going to do what they
16 did on this, and actually they charged what
17 the Court of Appeals said should be charged.
18 In other words, they told the jury the right
19 language.
20 And we were hoping to get that case
21 before the Court of Appeals before we had a
22 chance to do this bill, because at least what
23 they could have said is you're correct, that
24 bill -- even if they didn't actually move
25 ahead with the case.
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1 The final thing I want to say to
2 you is that if the Court of Appeals had
3 declared our statute unconstitutional, the DAs
4 and the attorney general in this state were
5 prepared to go to the Supreme Court of the
6 United States to overturn it. The only way
7 they could avoid that happening for sure was
8 the way they did it. It was pretty clever,
9 I'm the first to admit. But remember, you'd
10 have a constitutional challenge then.
11 This bill and the death penalty has
12 been tested over and over and over again. And
13 I think it's the right thing to do. But I
14 think the first thing we have to do is deal
15 with the problem of police officers, police
16 killings. As was said here, I think there's
17 seven troopers and three or four other police
18 officers. Actually, I think it might be 11
19 now. One guy was on the -- he was not a
20 police officer, he was an auxiliary. Eleven
21 people were killed.
22 And, Senator Diaz, the other thing
23 I want to tell you is remember that our prison
24 system now has umpteen numbers of people who
25 are in prison for life without parole.
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1 Then there's the fellow that almost
2 killed me. That fellow is in for 50 years to
3 life. You talk about a dangerous guy. He
4 murdered somebody in Texas. When I was a
5 police officer -- I won't get into the
6 details -- I ended up -- he reached for a .45,
7 but fortunately I got to him before he pulled
8 the .45 out and I stuck the gun in his ear.
9 He said, I was going to give you
10 the bill -- the gun, I'm sorry. And I said
11 yeah, bullet by bullet. He then murdered two
12 people. So he's in jail for 50 years to life.
13 He writes me every once in a while asking me
14 to help him get out, but obviously I don't pay
15 much attention to him.
16 But there's the kind of guy -- that
17 guy killed three people, almost killed four
18 people. The point is these are the people
19 we're trying to deal with, because those
20 people will also very possibly think before
21 they do anything.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
23 Senator Diaz, why do you rise?
24 SENATOR DIAZ: Mr. President,
25 will the Senator yield for a question.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
2 Senator Volker, will you yield for one
3 question?
4 SENATOR VOLKER: One question.
5 SENATOR DIAZ: Senator Volker, do
6 you really believe that the death penalty is a
7 deterrent?
8 SENATOR VOLKER: Absolutely.
9 There's no question in my mind. And let me
10 just tell you that the proof is in the
11 pudding --
12 SENATOR DIAZ: Just --
13 SENATOR VOLKER: Wait a minute.
14 No, no, I get to answer.
15 Every time the death penalty has
16 been found against, the murder rate has
17 soared, particularly among law enforcement
18 people. And every time we restore it, the
19 murder rate goes down. It's a fact. It's
20 very difficult to deal with because we don't
21 want to believe it, but it's a fact.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
23 you, Senator.
24 SENATOR DIAZ: Mr. President,
25 will the Senator still yield?
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1 SENATOR VOLKER: Yes.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
3 Senator continues to yield.
4 SENATOR DIAZ: So if the death
5 penalty is a deterrent, as you say, wouldn't
6 you like it to be a deterrent for everybody?
7 SENATOR VOLKER: Yes.
8 SENATOR DIAZ: So why not include
9 everyone in the bill?
10 SENATOR VOLKER: That's next
11 week.
12 SENATOR DIAZ: Next week?
13 SENATOR VOLKER: Well, next week
14 or the week after. We're going to do that,
15 yes, absolutely. That's my bill.
16 SENATOR DIAZ: Mr. President,
17 will the Senator yield for another question?
18 SENATOR VOLKER: Yes.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
20 Senator will continue to yield.
21 SENATOR DIAZ: Wouldn't you say
22 that this bill is sending a message that the
23 life of a police officer is worth more than
24 the life of other people?
25 SENATOR VOLKER: Yeah, it is.
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1 Because the police officer is so much more
2 likely to be killed. It's not that it's more,
3 it's just that they're more likely to be
4 killed, so you need a bigger deterrent.
5 SENATOR DIAZ: Who said that?
6 SENATOR VOLKER: The statistics
7 show it's a thousand times more likely that a
8 police officer is to be killed than an average
9 person.
10 SENATOR DIAZ: Will the Senator
11 still yield?
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
13 Senator Volker, do you continue to yield?
14 SENATOR VOLKER: Yes.
15 SENATOR DIAZ: I would like to
16 bring you to my district and show you some
17 statistics on police officers and the people
18 that get killed. And I'll show you, Senator,
19 and I assure you, Senator, that you're wrong.
20 When you say that the life of a police officer
21 is worth more than any other life in the State
22 of New York, you're wrong on that. And that
23 you are wrong by saying that a police officer
24 is more likely to get killed than any other
25 citizen.
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1 SENATOR VOLKER: You can say it's
2 wrong, and you'll be totally wrong.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Excuse
4 me, Senator Volker.
5 Senator, was that a question?
6 SENATOR DIAZ: I don't know what
7 it was. It was a statement, maybe.
8 Mr. President, you know, we have to
9 stop with the ironies here. This is serious
10 business here. We're talking about life.
11 We're talking about that any life in the State
12 of New York is the same. To say that the life
13 of a police officer is worth more --
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
15 Senator Diaz, just to keep order for a
16 moment --
17 SENATOR DIAZ: Okay.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Senator Volker has the floor. You're not
20 asking him to yield any longer. Senator
21 Volker is just about finished --
22 SENATOR VOLKER: Yes, I am
23 finished.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: -- and
25 we'll go to the next speaker.
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1 SENATOR VOLKER: Except to say,
2 Senator, I never said it was worth more. I'm
3 telling you -- Senator, please. I meant --
4 and I said this -- and I think because you
5 have decided that police officers are not as
6 likely to get killed as other people, you are
7 wrong.
8 Every statistic in this nation
9 shows that the most dangerous job in the world
10 is being a police officer. And next is being
11 a fireman, by the way. Do you think your
12 average citizen is more likely to be killed
13 than a fireman? Of course not. This is fact.
14 You're saying a lot of people are killed.
15 You're right. We'll pass a death penalty bill
16 and then it will be better.
17 But I'm going to finish by saying
18 that you can say all you want that a police
19 officer is not a dangerous occupation, but it
20 is. And it's been proved. And it's time to
21 pass Senator Golden's bill right now.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
23 you, Senator.
24 Senator Little.
25 SENATOR LITTLE: Thank you,
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1 Mr. President.
2 I too rise in support of this piece
3 of legislation, because I think it's a very
4 important piece of legislation.
5 I also agree that the killing of a
6 police officer, a person who has been willing
7 to risk their lives in order to protect the
8 community, is an assault on the community. If
9 you're willing to commit a murder against a
10 police officer in uniform, or knowingly
11 knowing that that is a police officer, you are
12 willing to kill just about anyone in the
13 community.
14 And I think that having this death
15 penalty option, which is something we are
16 trying to correct since the Supreme Court
17 showed that we needed to change, certainly
18 will help not only as a deterrent but also as
19 a means of punishment and injustice.
20 I also believe that this is the
21 time to do it. The tragedies that we have
22 heard talked about today are real tragedies,
23 and it's unfortunate that we cannot change any
24 of those. We cannot restore life to any of
25 those lost lives. But hopefully we can pass
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1 this piece of legislation that will prevent
2 someone else from being killed.
3 The numbers are rising, and it's
4 alarming. The disrespect or the disregard for
5 a person who is a law enforcement person is
6 something that we need to address and do so
7 with this piece of legislation.
8 But I also would like to speak
9 about this in regard to not only those law
10 enforcement officers who work to protect our
11 neighborhoods to make them safer, but for
12 those correction officers who work in some of
13 the most dangerous neighborhoods in the
14 country.
15 I happen to represent 12 facilities
16 within my district, and over 5,000 correction
17 officers who spend each and every day working
18 in a correctional facility, taking risks but
19 doing it in order to protect our communities.
20 Many of these inmates are serving
21 life without parole. We have a case going on
22 in one of our courts in one of the counties
23 that I represent where an inmate assaulted a
24 correction officer and he also, through his
25 civil rights, insisted on a trial. So there's
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1 a trial going on right now about the assault
2 of this correction officer. This inmate is
3 serving life without parole.
4 Now, the results of the trial, if
5 they prove him guilty -- and they have
6 substantial evidence against this person --
7 what are they going to add as a punishment to
8 this crime? More life without parole? What
9 happens when an inmate kills a correction
10 officer, and it has happened, and that person
11 has life without parole? Do we give them a
12 second life without parole?
13 We need something not only as a
14 means of punishment and justice, but we need
15 it as a deterrent for many of these people who
16 are serving life without parole in our
17 correctional facilities and have no incentive
18 to do anything any differently.
19 So I am very proud to stand here
20 today in support of this piece of legislation,
21 and I look forward to it moving through the
22 Assembly and being signed by the Governor.
23 Thank you.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
25 you, Senator Little.
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1 Senator Duane.
2 SENATOR DUANE: Thank you,
3 Mr. President.
4 I understand that there's probably
5 not too much more to be said about the death
6 penalty. But I would be remiss if I didn't
7 just say that I believe that it's morally and
8 ethically wrong. I don't think the State of
9 New York has the right to take a life away,
10 any more than anyone else has the right to
11 take a life away.
12 I want to just, since Texas has
13 been brought up a few times here, just to talk
14 about some of the things that people in Texas
15 have said just right before they were going to
16 be put to death.
17 "The reason it took them so long is
18 because they couldn't find a vein. You know
19 how I hate needles. I used to stay in a
20 doctor's office. Tell the guys on death row
21 that I'm not wearing a diaper. I can't think
22 of anything else. You all stay strong. Now
23 you can put all this aside. Don't bury in me
24 in the prison cemetery, bury me right beside
25 Momma. Don't bury me to the left of Dad, bury
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1 me on the right side of Mom."
2 "All praises be to God. I would
3 like to say to the Garza family, see my smile?
4 It is not from happiness. I took a father.
5 It wasn't my fault, it was an accident. God
6 knows the truth. If my life could bring your
7 father back, then let it be. Don't take my
8 smile for disrespect. If I see your father, I
9 will ask his forgiveness. I told the judge
10 the truth, it was an accident. I'll smile and
11 I'm not sad. If my life could make you happy,
12 be free. I'll say when I see him I'm sorry.
13 I have no anger nor fear. Mom, have no fear.
14 Mommy, I will be home when I get there."
15 Another one: "To my family, first
16 and foremost, I love you all. The calmness
17 that I was just telling you about, I still
18 have it. You are Mario's uncle, correct? I
19 just wanted you to know that I wronged your
20 family. I received nothing. I was not paid.
21 I took his life for the love of a friend. I
22 love you all. I just want you to know that.
23 I know he does, I feel it. I'm all right.
24 Make sure Momma knows, all right? Jermaine, I
25 love you too, man."
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1 "Yes, sir, I do" -- this is when
2 they're all being asked if they had a final
3 statement. "I'd like to say I love my mother,
4 brother, sister, grandmother, cousins and
5 nieces and my brothers and sisters I have
6 never met. I do apologize to the Service
7 family. I am responsible for them losing
8 their mother, their father and their
9 grandmother. I never meant for them to be
10 taken. I'm sorry for what I did, and I take
11 responsibility for what I did. That's all,
12 Warden."
13 When asked, another person, right
14 before they were put to death: "I do. I
15 would like to tell everybody that I'm sorry
16 about the situation that happened. My bad.
17 Everybody is here because of what happened.
18 I'd like to thank everybody that's been here
19 through the years. The little kids overseas,
20 they really changed me. Sister Doris, mom,
21 brother, sisters, Dad, I love you all. My
22 brother, where is my stunt double when you
23 need one? My Lord is my life and savior,
24 nothing shall I fear."
25 Justin Fuller, when he was asked if
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1 he wanted to make a last statement: "Yes, I
2 do. I'd like to tell my family thank you for
3 your support, and my friends, and let everyone
4 know that you must stay strong for each other.
5 Take care of yourselves. That's it, Warden."
6 And James Clark, this is what he
7 had to say right before he was put to death:
8 "Uh, uh, I don't know. Uh, I don't know what
9 to say. I don't know. I didn't know anybody
10 was there" -- meaning the people on the other
11 side of the window. "Howdy," as he waved to
12 them. He was put to death.
13 "Yes, sir. I charge the people of
14 the jury, trial judge, the prosecutor that
15 cheated to get this conviction, I charge each
16 and every one of you with the murder of an
17 innocent man. All the way to CCA, federal
18 court, Fifth Circuit of the Supreme Court.
19 You will answer to your maker when God has
20 found out that you executed an innocent man.
21 May God have mercy on you. My love to my son,
22 my daughter, Nancy, Cathy, Randy and my future
23 grandchildren. I ask for forgiveness for all
24 of the poison I brought into the U.S., the
25 country I love. Please forgive me for my
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1 sins. If my murder makes it easier for
2 everyone else to get the forgiveness, please
3 be a part of the healing. Go ahead, Warden,
4 murder me. Jesus, take me home."
5 And finally, from Derrick O'Brien:
6 "I do. I'm sorry. I have always been sorry.
7 It's the worst mistake that I ever made in my
8 whole life, not because I am here but because
9 of what I did. I hurt a lot of people, you
10 and my family. I am sorry. I have always
11 been sorry. I am sorry. You look after each
12 other. I love you all. Be there for one
13 another, all right? But I am sorry, very
14 sorry. I love you too. All right?"
15 Well, we don't live in Texas. And
16 even though we've had a ten-year experiment
17 with the death penalty, no one has been put to
18 death here. Although I have to say, you know,
19 I wasn't here, but the Legislature was in such
20 a hurry to pass a death penalty bill that they
21 drafted it poorly. Not unusual,
22 unfortunately, here in the Legislature. But
23 that was one of the reasons why it was thrown
24 out by the Court of Appeals.
25 So I feel like saying, you know,
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1 you had your chance, you blew it. Right? And
2 the world has changed and moved on since then,
3 and more and more people realize the
4 immorality of the death penalty.
5 You know, I just, you know, I could
6 argue -- you know, I know what the other side
7 is going to say. I can argue it as well --
8 better than some of them. And somehow I think
9 that it's not really a productive use of our
10 time to do this. I mean, I am virtually
11 certain the Assembly is not going to pass this
12 bill.
13 So, you know, for people who are
14 the victims or their family members were the
15 victim of a terrible crime and who support the
16 death penalty, I mean this kind of gives them
17 false hope. Right? And that's not fair to
18 the police either, by the way.
19 So ten years of an experiment that
20 failed here in New York State. You're going
21 to hear statistics -- some people will make
22 them up, some people actually have backup for
23 their statistics. But, you know, let's do
24 some meaningful legislation. Let's do other
25 things like make sure that our law enforcement
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1 people have the best possible training and the
2 best possible defense against violent
3 criminals. Let's do things like that. Let's
4 spend our time productively that way.
5 You know -- you know, been there,
6 done that, didn't work. Let's move on to
7 things that will really help the people of the
8 State of New York.
9 Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
11 you, Senator Duane.
12 Senator Krueger.
13 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
14 Mr. President.
15 I rise to speak on the bill. And a
16 lot of people have spoken, and there's been a
17 lot of misinformation given, so I will start
18 with some facts.
19 The case against the death penalty
20 has already been made over the years in
21 New York. Actually, in 1841 the New York
22 State Assembly -- that was 1841 -- recommended
23 abolition of the punishment of death by law.
24 Among other things, the report said that "the
25 uncertainty of conviction by juries for
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1 capital offenses has grown almost into a
2 proverb. In the clearest case, it is
3 constantly seen they will not convict."
4 More than a century later, in 1965,
5 the Temporary Commission on the Revision of
6 the Penal Law and the Criminal Code, chaired
7 by Republican Richard Bartlett of Glens Falls,
8 concluded: "The death penalty was a barbarism
9 which had a seriously baneful effect on the
10 administration of criminal justice." The
11 commission observed that erroneous convictions
12 and executions were inevitable and would
13 destroy the moral force of the entire penal
14 law, that the death penalty could not be
15 administered in the United States with even
16 rough equality, and that the number of cruel
17 and repulsive murders never will be greatly
18 influenced by abolition of the death penalty.
19 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth
20 Bader Ginsberg has stated she's never seen a
21 death penalty case on appeal in front of the
22 U.S. Supreme Court in which the defendant was
23 well represented at trial.
24 There are approximately 20,000
25 criminal homicides in this country each year,
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1 and only about 50 result in a death penalty
2 execution. Fifty out of 20,000. Were those
3 people each year really the most evil of all?
4 Senator Duane just read from some of them. It
5 appears we are executing the criminals with
6 the worst lawyers, not the worst criminals.
7 And capital punishment has proved
8 not to protect our police officer or our other
9 citizens, although passing a bill today may
10 allow us to believe we're doing something.
11 But we're not assuring justice, and we're not
12 protecting our citizens or our police. We've
13 seen the data over and over and over again.
14 The Assembly held hearings when our
15 death penalty law was not upheld by the
16 courts, and a Republican Senator named John
17 Dunne testified at those hearings. And he
18 testified about having been a supporter of the
19 death penalty and having been named by Senate
20 Majority Leader Joe Bruno as one of the first
21 members of the Capital Defender Board. And he
22 said that that experience, which he felt he
23 was prepared for, opened his eyes as to how
24 impossible it was to implement a fair death
25 penalty statute.
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1 And he talked about a specific case
2 in his testimony, the case of a man named
3 Lemuel Smith in the '80s who was tried and
4 sentenced to death for the murder of a prison
5 guard, and a year and a half later he was
6 spared the death sentence when the mandatory
7 death penalty for lifers who kill was ruled
8 unconstitutional.
9 And Smith, according to Senator
10 John Dunne, was already a despised and legally
11 vulnerable lifer at the time of the alleged
12 homicide. He unsuccessfully sought counsel
13 for two weeks and for nine days he was
14 interrogated, implicated on television as the
15 murderer. He was locked in special housing.
16 His teeth were seized from him. And 22 days
17 after the murder, he finally secured defense
18 counsel. And thereafter he was deprived in
19 any real sense of the effective assistance of
20 that counsel for a period of 15 months, 26
21 weeks of which were involved in defense
22 applications for compensation.
23 The prosecution received
24 approximately $10 for every dollar given to
25 the defense. Much that needed to be done by
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1 defense counsel in a death penalty case was
2 simply never attempted. The case was
3 improperly investigated, leads were ignored,
4 and much evidence was overlooked.
5 And there's been other research
6 done about the fact that the death penalty can
7 be applied erroneously just as likely in
8 capital cases against private citizens as
9 against police officers or peace officers or
10 prison guards.
11 And there's documentation of the
12 fact that, despite one of my colleagues'
13 earlier statement that there's a lower rate of
14 death of police and correction officers in
15 states with the death penalty, that actually
16 the data is just the opposite. The data is
17 that states without the death penalty have
18 lower criminal homicide rates, including
19 police officers on duty do not suffer a higher
20 rate of criminal assault and homicide in
21 states that have abolished the death penalty
22 than they do in death penalty states.
23 And lethal assaults against police
24 were significantly less frequent in abolition
25 states than in death penalty states, and that
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1 there is no support for the view that the
2 death penalty provides a more effective
3 deterrent to police homicides than alternative
4 sanctions. Not a single year has there been
5 evidence found that police are safer in
6 jurisdictions that provide for capital
7 punishment.
8 And prisoners and prison personnel
9 do not suffer a higher rate of criminal
10 assault or homicide from life-term prisoners
11 in abolition states than they do in all death
12 penalty states. Between 1984 and 1989, 17
13 prison staff were murdered by prisoners in 10
14 states. And of these murders, 88 percent
15 occurred in death penalty jurisdictions, just
16 as about 88 percent of all the prisoners in
17 those 10 states were in death penalty
18 jurisdictions.
19 Evidently the threat of the death
20 penalty does not exert even an incremental
21 deterrent effect over the threat of a lesser
22 punishment in the abolitionist states.
23 And there's data from our own
24 district attorneys and prison wardens here in
25 New York State that correctional workers from
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1 across the country feel that lifers presented
2 fewer disciplinary problems than the general
3 population, and 92 percent said lifers were
4 more cooperative than the rest of the
5 population.
6 And there's the data from the
7 Innocence Project, from the Columbia
8 professors, from New Yorkers Against the Death
9 Penalty, from the moratorium states, from the
10 Governor of Illinois, pages and pages of
11 documentation and statistics and reports
12 showing us that the death penalty will not
13 make us safer.
14 The death penalty is not a perfect
15 system. To put one innocent person to death
16 challenges all of us in our society as to what
17 our rule role is as government. It makes us a
18 lesser people. It encourages a culture of
19 violence. It is always irrevocable. There's
20 no degree of due process that is sufficient to
21 correct the state's execution of an innocent
22 person.
23 And over and over again, over a
24 hundred times we have seen innocent people on
25 death row being released. And yet over and
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1 over again, we don't do the research on people
2 who are executed to find out how many of them,
3 if they'd had the right lawyers, if they'd had
4 the right due process would have also been
5 found to be innocent.
6 We have a solid system of criminal
7 justice. We have the ability to put people in
8 jail for life without parole to protect our
9 citizens from evil people.
10 Reinstating the death penalty for
11 any subuniverse of violent criminals or any
12 subcategory of crime doesn't change the
13 fundamental questions of whether or not we
14 should have a death penalty, whether or not we
15 need to have a death penalty, or whether we
16 could justify under our existing systems of
17 law the fact that we have proven one thing
18 with our death penalty in the 1800s and the
19 1900s -- and I hope no longer in the 21st
20 century -- that mistakes are made, they will
21 continue to be made. This is a model of
22 criminal justice that has no place in the
23 state of New York, and there's no
24 justification for it.
25 And I suppose last, because a great
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1 deal has been discussed about the horrors of
2 when a police officer is killed on duty, or
3 the pain to their families, well, the same
4 data is true from all of the research that
5 putting someone to death for a criminal act
6 solves none of the problems for the victim's
7 families who are left behind. And in fact, as
8 we see over and over again, large numbers of
9 victims' families have come forward to urge us
10 not to have a death penalty.
11 So I don't believe it's a different
12 story for the victims, whether or not their
13 spouse was in law enforcement. It's a
14 dangerous job. We can and should do much more
15 to address the underlying risks of being a
16 police officer.
17 But again the data shows that when
18 you ask district attorneys and police chiefs
19 what they think we should do to protect
20 officers, they don't talk about the death
21 penalty. They talk about gun control, they
22 talk about swifter trial procedures, they talk
23 about better training, they talk about the
24 need to have more officers on the streets.
25 They're not the ones saying this is their
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1 priority.
2 And so it is terrible when anyone
3 is murdered. It is terrible when a police
4 officer or a peace officer or a corrections
5 officer is murdered in the line of duty. But
6 it doesn't change the fundamental flaws in any
7 modern-world construction of the death
8 penalty. It doesn't give their lives back to
9 us. And it doesn't solve their families'
10 loss.
11 So I will vote no on this bill. I
12 am very glad I currently live in a state
13 without the death penalty. I am not a
14 minority. The majority of New Yorkers do not
15 want a death penalty, because they understand
16 the facts as I have described them and as so
17 many of my colleagues today have already
18 spoken about. The death penalty will not make
19 us safer, it will not make our police officers
20 safer, but it will perhaps make us lesser as a
21 moral society doing right.
22 Thank you, Mr. President. I vote
23 no.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
25 you, Senator Krueger.
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1 Senator Marcellino.
2 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
3 Mr. President.
4 We've heard a lot of discussion
5 lately about statistics, pro and con: is the
6 death penalty a deterrent, is it not.
7 Mr. President, I wonder if Senator Golden
8 would yield for a question.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Senator Golden, will you yield for a question?
11 SENATOR GOLDEN: I do.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
13 Senator yields.
14 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Senator
15 Golden, you at the beginning of the statement
16 of your opening remarks issued some statistics
17 on the number of police officer deaths or the
18 number of homicides before the death penalty
19 was instituted and after it and then before
20 the current problem with the death penalty law
21 and then subsequent to its knocking off.
22 Could you please repeat those
23 statistics for us?
24 SENATOR GOLDEN: Certainly.
25 The numbers between 1977 and 1995,
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1 it was consistent, between 10 and 14 murders
2 per 100,000 people. And then it goes on to
3 say only once did it drop to 10 or right below
4 10. And in 1995, the year the death penalty
5 was reinstated, the murder rate dropped to 8.5
6 per 100,000 and has steadily decreased to a
7 low of 4.35 per 100,000 in 2005.
8 Even without a single execution
9 taking place, the presence of the death
10 penalty here in New York has coincided with
11 much of the lower murder rates that we see
12 today that exist.
13 So the numbers are outstanding and
14 the studies -- that's the U.S. government
15 numbers. University of Chicago, the study of
16 Mocan and Gittings, that each individual
17 execution resulted in a decrease of about five
18 murders. And on the flip side, they found
19 when a death sentence was reduced, there was
20 an increase of five murders, an increase.
21 So the study of Shepherd, a similar
22 study that verifies the research but says that
23 it decreases by three murders, not five
24 murders. And these are crimes of passion.
25 And we thought that we couldn't do anything
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1 about crimes of passion, but crimes of passion
2 were decreased as well.
3 These are statistics by both the
4 U.S. government and by the University of
5 Chicago.
6 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
7 Senator Golden.
8 Mr. President, I believe the
9 statistics speak for themselves. Despite all
10 philosophical pros and cons one way or the
11 other, the statistics are there. When the
12 death penalty is in existence, the murder rate
13 drops. When the death penalty is not in
14 existence, the murder rate rises.
15 Senators, the numbers were just
16 recited to you. Nothing anyone has said has
17 called those numbers into question. They are
18 a fact. You might not like the facts, but
19 they're the facts.
20 Thank you, Mr. President.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
22 you, Senator.
23 Senator Schneiderman.
24 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
25 Mr. President.
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1 I appreciate Senator Marcellino
2 teeing up my commentary. In fact, those
3 statistics have been completely undercut by
4 the January 2007 New Jersey Death Penalty
5 Study Commission report, which examined the
6 very studies Senator Golden has cited and the
7 studies that refuted them.
8 A thorough inquiry was undertaken
9 into the literature on the death penalty in
10 this state, but not by the Senate, by the
11 New York State Assembly in April 2005. And
12 the last time we debated the death penalty in
13 this house, my colleagues and I cited numerous
14 studies consistently demonstrating the lack of
15 a deterrent effect -- or, excuse me, let me
16 state this carefully, the lack of any credible
17 empirical evidence of a deterrent effect in
18 states that have the death penalty.
19 Indeed, all these citations of the
20 numbers of peace officers and police officers
21 killed by my colleagues on the other side of
22 the aisle have omitted one salient fact, which
23 is that most of them have been in states where
24 they have the death penalty. There is no
25 deterrent effect.
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1 If you don't want to do this as
2 we're doing it today, anecdotally, with people
3 citing one study or another study or facts
4 like the testimony that I see that you credit
5 by Mr. Adams, the codefendant in this
6 horrendous crime -- who was, in fact, a
7 prosecution witness testifying under an
8 agreement with the prosecutors when he said
9 that the murderer had said, "Oh, is there a
10 death penalty in New York State?"
11 I spent two years working in a
12 prison. I never met a street criminal who
13 said before a crime: "Excuse me, Jerome, what
14 is the status of the death penalty in our
15 state now, or do you get life without parole?"
16 And he says: "No. Actually, in fact,
17 recently there's been a decision of the U.S.
18 Supreme Court invalidating it." "Oh, in fact,
19 then I think I'll go out and commit this
20 heinous blood-lust crime."
21 That's not the way they operate.
22 If you spend any time at all with dangerous
23 street criminals, you know that these are not
24 the kinds of people who are deterred through
25 this sort of logical process.
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1 I will concede that it may be true
2 for people like ourselves, for white-collar
3 criminals, which I used to defend. And as
4 I've said often, you know, you want to see --
5 I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but if
6 you want to put in effect the death penalty
7 for securities fraud, you will have the
8 cleanest markets in the world, I assure you of
9 that.
10 But the people who commit the
11 crimes we're talking about, crimes of
12 violence, are not deterred.
13 And, ladies and gentlemen, last
14 time we were here debating this and I offered
15 up and others offered up all of the testimony,
16 all of the studies that were adduced and
17 brought forth in the Assembly hearings and
18 that have been updated by the recent
19 New Jersey study and hearings, my colleagues
20 on the other side of the aisle said, We will
21 hold hearings.
22 And, you know, my friend and
23 personal hero Senator Volker stated we will --
24 "I want to tell you, if the Assembly does not
25 pass this bill this year" -- I'm quoting --
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1 "they're going to get their hearings. We're
2 going around the state then."
3 Now, let's not do this in a
4 haphazard way. Let's not make up facts. Just
5 because you say it doesn't make it so.
6 And I respectfully submit -- and
7 I've been studying this for years, I spent two
8 years working in a prison before I went to law
9 school and I've been looking at sentencing and
10 at issues related to sentencing and the death
11 penalty for most of my adult life -- I have
12 never seen a peer-reviewed study survive
13 scrutiny that has found that the death penalty
14 is a deterrent.
15 It doesn't work on the people
16 you're concerned about, ladies and gentlemen.
17 The stuff that's being cited here are studies
18 that in some cases have been directly refuted.
19 And if we're not going to have a
20 hearing and we're not going to really look at
21 all the evidence, I don't think we're doing
22 our job.
23 So I would respectfully urge my
24 colleagues that we do what we said we were
25 going to do in 2005. Let's hold hearings,
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1 let's get all the evidence out. And I really
2 do believe that some of you who are in favor
3 of this bill will change your minds as
4 Republican governors, senators, our colleague,
5 Senator Dunne, the Republican governor of
6 Illinois, who imposed a moratorium, the
7 Republican governor of Massachusetts,
8 others -- jurists, members of the courts --
9 have changed their mind about the death
10 penalty.
11 We know from the presence of the
12 folks here from the Innocence Project that
13 innocent people are put on death row. I wish
14 I should share the overwhelming confidence my
15 colleagues express that no innocent person has
16 ever been executed in New York State. I don't
17 see how you can possibly say that.
18 Thank you, Mr. President. I'm
19 urging everyone to vote no.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
21 you, Senator Schneiderman.
22 Senator Nozzolio.
23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
24 Mr. President. Mr. President, on the bill.
25 Senator Schneiderman is right,
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1 innocent people are being put to death each
2 and every day all across this state. And
3 those people are wearing badges and are
4 protecting us and are putting themselves in
5 harm's way and are risking their lives and are
6 being executed in a war that's being waged
7 against police officers across New York State.
8 That is undeniable.
9 Senator Golden's bill is putting
10 forth, hopefully, a component that will help
11 end that war. At the very least, provide
12 additional protection so that those who may be
13 thinking about getting away with a crime, not
14 doing the time by perpetrating a murder
15 against a police officer -- that's the
16 innocent victim in this case, the police
17 officer.
18 It's not, as Senator Schneiderman
19 suggests, and others have suggested, that our
20 focus is about an innocent person being put to
21 death because of a conviction, while that's
22 certainly a concern. But our primary concern
23 needs to be placed about the innocent police
24 officers that are being put to death by this
25 war.
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1 That's why I rise, Mr. President,
2 in support of this measure. That's why I say
3 to my colleagues on the other side of the
4 aisle, certainly everyone is entitled to due
5 process. The conviction of the wrong person
6 is something that our criminal justice system
7 has been for centuries trying to prevent. The
8 technology available today, with the DNA
9 database to establish everyone who's been
10 convicted of a crime, be it a misdemeanor or a
11 felony, supply their DNA so that we will have,
12 as DNA has proven, that there are some people
13 who were not guilty of crimes, that those
14 people should be let out of jail because
15 they're innocent.
16 DNA can help us find the innocent,
17 but it also can help us find the guilty. And
18 that's something that this Senate Republican
19 body has fought for and pushed for and will
20 continue to fight for until we have an
21 adequate DNA database in New York State.
22 I'd like to just in a few short
23 moments discuss an element that's been missing
24 from the debate, a lengthy debate, a good
25 debate. I applaud the sponsors of this
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1 legislation, particularly Senators Golden and
2 Volker, who have stood so tall against this
3 war being waged against the innocent of our
4 state.
5 We have incarcerated in New York
6 State well over 60,000 people in our state
7 correctional facilities and tens of thousands
8 more across the rest of our correctional
9 system. If you put an individual -- and
10 opponents of this legislation are saying that
11 an individual should have life without parole.
12 Well, I say to the advocates who are pushing
13 life without parole, how many life without
14 parole sentences can you serve?
15 Putting those individuals that are
16 incarcerated in a jail facility places our
17 correction officers, our other correctional
18 personnel at tremendous risk. What is to
19 deter a murderer already serving life without
20 parole behind the walls of a correctional
21 facility from murdering a correction officer,
22 murdering a correctional employee, murdering a
23 teacher, someone who's in the jail system
24 entrusted with the custodianship for that
25 system -- or, for that matter, another inmate?
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1 Inmates murder inmates all the time in
2 New York State.
3 What type of deterrent is life
4 without parole to a person who's already
5 sentenced to life without parole? That person
6 will be a time bomb within the correctional
7 system, will murder and seek to murder
8 additional inmates, will put at tremendous
9 risk our correction officers of this state.
10 That's where the opponents' logic
11 is faulty on this legislation, Mr. President.
12 And I respectfully appreciate the opportunity
13 to speak on this measure and certainly support
14 it, urge my colleagues to do likewise.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
16 you, Senator Nozzolio.
17 Senator Connor.
18 SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you,
19 Mr. President.
20 You know, I look around and I
21 realize that of the members currently serving,
22 since Senator Marchi retired, I have served
23 and been in opposition to the death penalty
24 longest of any member in this chamber.
25 And I first engaged in a debate
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1 against the death penalty within weeks of
2 arriving here in 1978. And what was
3 interesting then is I debated against some --
4 because I notice previous speakers seem to say
5 this is a partisan issue. It's not. When I
6 first arrived here, there were at least four
7 or five Republican members who were in
8 opposition to the death penalty. One
9 persisted; Senator Marchi. Four or five
10 others changed their position.
11 I saw a couple of Democrats that I
12 served with in those early days change from
13 opposition to being pro-death penalty. And
14 indeed one member, after the 1982
15 redistricting, switched from being for the
16 death penalty to being against the death
17 penalty, having left the more conservative
18 parts of his district to me.
19 When I first arrived here, I would
20 without a doubt say that my district
21 overwhelmingly supported the death penalty, a
22 product of two things: the nature of the then
23 district -- and that's before I got the other
24 Senator's more conservative parts -- and a
25 product of the times. Some of the members
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1 against whom I debated then, Long Island
2 Republicans, had once in the '60s proudly led
3 the effort to repeal the death penalty in this
4 state and had subsequently, in the early '70s,
5 switched. That's apart from the ones who
6 switched in the late '70s.
7 So I've seen this issue go back and
8 forth. I have to say that in some cases
9 perhaps the switch involved a conscientious
10 change on the part of the members. Most often
11 it reflected the politics of their district,
12 the changing attitudes of the public.
13 In the late '70s a colleague of
14 mine told the story of chatting with a priest
15 from his district. This colleague was not
16 Catholic, but he was talking to a monsignor,
17 and he said, "What do you think of the death
18 penalty?" And the pastor said to him: "Vox
19 populi, vox Dei." The voice of the people is
20 the voice of God. My colleague said, "Yes
21 Monsignor, but does God change his mind every
22 ten years?"
23 The fact is I've seen the public
24 mood shift. Today I have no doubt that the
25 majority of the voters in my district are
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1 opposed to the death penalty. For the first
2 twenty years I opposed it, I had no doubt --
3 and I think I was right -- that a substantial
4 majority supported it. Things change. The
5 public attitude changes.
6 You know, in the late '70s and
7 through the '80s, crime was enormously high.
8 People were fearful, and they naturally lashed
9 out at the sociopaths who were inflicting so
10 much harm and damage by committing crimes.
11 But through all these debates,
12 there's one thing I'm sure of. And I've heard
13 the statistics against the death penalty. I
14 don't believe most of them. And I've heard
15 the statistics to justify the death penalty,
16 and I don't believe most of them. Because
17 they're just statistics. They lack any real
18 evidence of causation.
19 We heard earlier murders were down
20 in the last 12 years. Well, so are robberies
21 and car thefts and rapes and every category of
22 crime is down, crimes for which there was no
23 death penalty in effect.
24 So I don't doubt Senator Golden's
25 statistics, I just doubt the imputation to
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1 them of any kind of causation or relationship
2 between the penalty or not. In my gut I've
3 always believed when people said it's a
4 deferent that the kind of sociopaths who
5 commit these crimes -- and someone mentioned
6 crimes of passion. Certainly there's no
7 deterrent there, I don't care what the
8 statistics say.
9 But the kind of lawless sociopath
10 who would shoot at a police officer obviously
11 not only has a total disregard for the
12 sanctity of life, for the societal role that
13 police officers play as our protectors and as
14 our servants and the servants of the peace,
15 but they have a total disregard for their own
16 life.
17 You know, if being a police officer
18 is one of the most dangerous occupations,
19 being a criminal who shoots at police officers
20 has got to rank up there as one of the more
21 dangerous things for one to do for one's own
22 personal safety. Because if you're not killed
23 in that gun battle and the standoff and the
24 manhunt that will result, you're in high
25 likelihood of being killed. And, you know,
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1 maybe the number of murders are down in the
2 last 12 years because the number of robberies
3 are down. But I don't impute causation.
4 And I don't believe that these kind
5 of vicious, vicious sociopaths are deterred by
6 any consideration of law, order, their own
7 safety, their own future. They either think
8 they're going to get away with it or they
9 don't care. They're committing suicide by
10 shooting at police officers.
11 So I just don't buy deterrence. I
12 wish there was -- I wish I could be convinced
13 that there was a deterrent, whether it be the
14 death penalty or something else. I just don't
15 buy it. It's not there.
16 The closest argument that I always
17 listen to is the one Senator Nozzolio made
18 about the safety of correction officers when
19 you have people incarcerated for life without
20 parole who have proven by their past conduct
21 that they are killers. And that argument, I
22 listen to that. That does concern me.
23 There's some concern there.
24 But I think there are measures we
25 can take to ensure that such people don't harm
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1 either other inmates or personnel in our
2 correctional facilities. You know, we know
3 who they are and we know how dangerous they
4 are. And I've got to believe there are just
5 ways -- you know, those kind of prisoners, no
6 one suggests that they should be moved from
7 cell to cell without being chained,
8 handcuffed, and appropriately guarded. They
9 certainly aren't given -- they shouldn't be
10 given the run of the yard, so to speak, in the
11 prisons.
12 So what are we left with? Well,
13 the death penalty, I guess, is a certain raw
14 justice. A certain raw justice, if you go by
15 the Code of Hammurabi or the Old Testament --
16 an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son
17 for a son, a father for a son. That strikes
18 people. But you know what? Legal codes 2,000
19 and 3,000 years old, aren't we better than
20 that now? Don't we proclaim we have a more
21 civilized society today than 2500 years ago or
22 3,000 years ago? I would hope so, you know.
23 And back then they didn't have
24 correctional facilities if they did have a raw
25 sense of justice or blood for blood. Today we
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1 have better ways of dealing with virtually
2 every problem than they did then, and
3 certainly we have a better way of dealing now.
4 The political punch is not there
5 for the death penalty. You can try and revive
6 it all you want. It's not there now. Ten
7 years from now it may be different. Ten years
8 ago it was different, and 15 years before that
9 it was the other way. That's politics.
10 My opposition to the death penalty
11 is simply fundamental. It is unworthy of the
12 civilized society we hope to be living in in
13 this, the 21st century. That's why I'm
14 opposed to the death penalty.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
16 you, Senator Connor.
17 Senator Parker.
18 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President,
19 on the bill.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
21 Senator Parker, on the bill.
22 SENATOR PARKER: Let me begin by
23 saying this is a well-intentioned bill. And
24 let me thank Senator Golden for his interest
25 in this issue, for his courageousness in
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1 bringing this to the floor. Because this is a
2 truly important issue. I don't think there's
3 one member of this body who is not concerned
4 with safety in their community.
5 And all of us have police officers
6 who live amongst our districts. We count on
7 police officers for our safety, and we count
8 on corrections officers as well. My nephew is
9 a corrections officer. I have a
10 brother-in-law who's a corrections officer.
11 We want them protected. We don't want
12 anything to happen to them. However, this
13 bill is not the way to protect them.
14 We oftentimes talk about how to
15 protect communities by raising penalties.
16 That becomes kind of the ongoing theme in this
17 body. Because every time we want to protect a
18 class of people, we give the death penalty, we
19 subscribe more jail time, we raise penalties
20 and raise penalties and raise penalties. But
21 never do we actually do the real kind of
22 programmatic things that it takes to in fact
23 deal with the issues that we attempt to
24 address in this body.
25 So we talk about gang violence, but
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1 never do we come up with programmatic dollars
2 to in fact engage our young people after
3 school. We talk about drugs in our community,
4 but we never, ever come up with dollars to
5 develop programs to both prevent people from
6 getting on drugs but then also to do serious
7 intervention with people after they get on to
8 help them get off.
9 And this is the same kind of road
10 that we're -- down the primrose path that
11 we're going down now that doesn't really lead
12 us to where we ought to be going. We all want
13 safe communities. We want our neighbors, our
14 friends, our families safe. We want police
15 officers safe. We want peace officers safe.
16 We want corrections officers safe. But
17 unfortunately, this bill is not going to do
18 that.
19 Just like when we talked about
20 raising penalties for people who sell drugs in
21 schoolyards. The reality is if you want to
22 stop people from selling drugs in schoolyards,
23 put a cop there and people won't sell drugs in
24 school yards. It's really not that hard. The
25 reality is anybody who is selling drugs in a
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1 schoolyard is not saying what the penalty is,
2 especially if they don't think they're going
3 to get caught because there's no prevention.
4 I've been recently talking to
5 nurses, I have lots of nurses in my district.
6 And I've been talking to folks from the
7 New York State Nurses Association, and they're
8 really concerned about violence against two
9 nurses. A really serious issue, and this body
10 ought to take that up at some point. And they
11 really want to raise the penalties
12 specifically for people who assault nurses.
13 I certainly think we ought to
14 protect nurses. But really what I've said to
15 them is that, you know, we ought to consider
16 the bill, but the reality is that what we
17 ought to do if we want to protect nurses is
18 work and develop a hospital safety bill that
19 in fact requires a certain level of security
20 or police presence on the floors where this
21 stuff is in fact happening.
22 We know where it's happening.
23 Because essentially at the end of the day, if
24 you in fact assault a nurse or if you kill a
25 cop -- this bill is not going to stop anybody
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1 from killing cops. We will get some justice.
2 Vengeance will be ours, sayeth the New York
3 State Senate. But this is certainly not going
4 to lead us to less occurrences of police
5 officers, peace officers and corrections
6 officers being killed or harmed.
7 The only way that's going to happen
8 is in fact if we take some serious
9 programmatic steps that we know work in terms
10 of dealing with this issue. And people can
11 claim that they don't really know the numbers,
12 they can say, oh, this study and that study.
13 You can always find a study that says what you
14 want it to say.
15 We want our communities safe. We
16 want our police officers safe. We want our
17 children safe. But this bill is not the way
18 that we in fact get it done.
19 If we want to protect peace
20 officers and police officers and Department of
21 Corrections officers, we need to provide more
22 training. We need to make sure they have the
23 right equipment. We need to make sure there
24 are staffing levels that are appropriate in
25 Department of Corrections facilities. We need
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1 to make sure that our police are staffed in a
2 way that you don't have one and two cars out
3 in sectors the way we have in New York City
4 right now. You know, you go to a midnight
5 tour and, you know, most of our communities
6 have only got two cars out, two sector cars.
7 And the reality is that, you know,
8 we have not even returned to the level of
9 staffing in the New York City Police
10 Department that we were the morning of 9/11.
11 So here we are, six years later, in a
12 brand-new world where we say to ourselves that
13 we understand the reality of terrorism and
14 where we understand that first responders are
15 going to be critical in both preventing and
16 responding to a possible terrorist attack, and
17 we still haven't even gotten our police
18 department up to a staffing level where we can
19 even pretend to respond to these things let
20 alone, you know, prevent something
21 catastrophic from happening.
22 If you want to in fact protect
23 police officers or you want to protect
24 Department of Corrections officers, you want
25 to protect peace officers -- which we all want
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1 to do -- let's in fact put some money where
2 our mouths are.
3 Where is the bill that in fact will
4 bring the New York City Police Department, put
5 their pay in parity with police officers from
6 around the state? Senator Golden, where is
7 that bill? I would love to see that bill.
8 It's rhetorical, but I would love to see a
9 bill, you being a former police officer in
10 New York City, that says it's not enough to
11 today pay starting police officers in New York
12 City $25,000.
13 We can't get the best and brightest
14 in our police department paying them $25,000.
15 Particularly when we raised the standard to
16 now requiring 60 credits of college to in fact
17 make that happen, and we're going to give
18 people $25,000. To do what you have described
19 yourself as being, you know, the most
20 dangerous job in America.
21 So let's put more money into making
22 sure that we get the best and the brightest,
23 that we get people who have the proper
24 training, that we make sure we have the best
25 equipment for our police officers. Because I
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1 want that for my police officers in the 66 in
2 my district, in the 63 in my district, in the
3 67 in my district, in the 79 in my district,
4 in the 70 in my district. I have the largest
5 command in New York City in my district. And
6 we are, in that command, almost a hundred cops
7 less than we were the morning of 9/11.
8 In a world where we're clear that
9 terrorism can happen, in fact, at any moment,
10 where amber, orange alerts and red alerts and
11 all kinds of things are the order of the day,
12 we still have not gotten back to where we need
13 to in terms of staffing. Let's in fact bring
14 a bill there that would encourage more people
15 and encourage retention into the police
16 department.
17 Now, being that we have some
18 agreement, I'm going to assume, in making sure
19 that we have proper staffing levels because we
20 all want to make our police officers safe, the
21 problem with this bill is that this bill
22 unfortunately does not make us safe. Because
23 in fact we do know that the death penalty is
24 not a deterrent for people committing crimes.
25 And I'm going to quote Roger Hood
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1 in a book called "The Death Penalty: A
2 Worldwide Perspective." This is from the
3 Oxford Clarion Press, third edition, 2002,
4 page 230. And it reads: "Scientific studies
5 have consistently failed to find convincing
6 evidence that the death penalty deters crime
7 more effectively than other punishments. The
8 most recent survey of research findings on the
9 relationship between the death penalty and
10 homicide rates conducted for the United
11 Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002 concluded,
12 and I quote, 'It is not prudent to accept the
13 hypothesis that capital punishment deters
14 murder to a marginally greater extent than
15 does the threat and application of the
16 supposedly lesser punishment of life
17 imprisonment.'"
18 We know it doesn't work. And we
19 talk about, you know, as my colleague Senator
20 Connor has alluded to, you know, what we're
21 hearing from Senator Golden, at least with his
22 statistics, is what we call a spurious
23 relationship. It is that we are not in fact
24 accounting for all of the variables that in
25 fact might be impacting a particular
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1 situation.
2 We know that over the last 12 years
3 as crime has gone down, again, as Senator
4 Connor has indicated, the economy has been up.
5 And there's far more of a relationship between
6 a good economy and deterring crime than there
7 is in the death penalty.
8 So if you in fact want to really
9 stop crime in our communities, what we need to
10 be passing -- and I would love to work with
11 you to pass this -- is a full employment law
12 in the State of New York. Why don't we have a
13 full employment law? Last time there was full
14 employment for black folks in this state, it
15 was slavery.
16 We need a full employment law.
17 Where you have an economic theory that is
18 based on an optimal level of unemployment, so
19 you create a reserve pool of labor, you are
20 certainly by definition relegating some people
21 to the informal economy and the underground
22 economy. Let's have a full employment law,
23 and let's get rid of crime.
24 You can applaud.
25 The other issue that really is
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1 important for us to deal with is the issue of
2 race and class as it relates to the death
3 penalty. That without a doubt -- and this is
4 not even up, really, for debate. This is just
5 a matter of fact -- that African-Americans and
6 Latinos are more likely to be subject to the
7 death penalty than whites. Those killing
8 whites are more likely to be subject to the
9 death penalty than those killing blacks.
10 Point blank, period, end of story. There's
11 not even a debate.
12 However, if you want to hear some
13 of the numbers -- and this is from the Death
14 Penalty Information Center. This is
15 exonerations by race since 1973, exonerations.
16 And this is actually in New York State.
17 Blacks, 62; whites, 48; Latinos, 12; and
18 others, 1.
19 We know, by and large -- and not
20 because, you know, every single police officer
21 is racist. But let's be clear, there's racism
22 in our criminal justice system at almost every
23 single level. I mean, nobody in our
24 districts. In other districts, though, that
25 happens.
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1 And so the reality is we have to
2 compensate for the failures of what happens on
3 the ground. And we certainly cannot continue
4 to let African-Americans and Latinos be the
5 overwhelming victims of an unjust and racist
6 criminal justice system.
7 And we also need to just look at
8 the issue of how many innocent people -- and
9 we'll never really know this -- over the
10 years, how many innocent people have actually
11 been killed by the death penalty. With all
12 the number of exonerations, with the Innocence
13 Project, with all the DNA testing that we're
14 seeing now, almost daily we're seeing people
15 being released based on new DNA tests. And
16 the only thing that's keeping it from
17 happening more often is literally we are not
18 putting more money into things like the
19 Innocence Project to in fact make sure that
20 these tests are going to last.
21 And so I've seen lots of bills come
22 across my desk here in the Senate that talk
23 about using DNA testing. And we ought to use
24 it, but we ought to in fact use it as well,
25 just like we use it to convict people, we
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1 ought to be also using it to exonerate people.
2 And so let's put some money into making sure
3 innocent people aren't the victims of the
4 death penalty in this state.
5 And my last point -- and I know
6 you've all been waiting for this, not because
7 you're so interested, but just because it's my
8 last point -- is really the expense of this.
9 In a body that is so cognizant of how much
10 money we're spending, it is interesting that
11 when we talk about blood killing and revenge,
12 the sky is the limit.
13 And frankly, my Republican
14 colleagues here are nothing but a microcosm of
15 what we see on the national level with, you
16 know, the bloodletting in Iraq. It's that,
17 you know, in the first year that the federal
18 government put $89 billion into Iraq, the
19 fifty states of the United States were in over
20 $70 billion worth of debt, including the State
21 of New York, who had $12 billion worth of
22 debt. And in that year that we had
23 $12 billion of debt, our Republican governor
24 could not get a dime from the Republican
25 president of this country to in fact deal with
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1 Medicaid, deal with housing, deal with
2 education, deal with transportation.
3 And this is the same thing we're
4 falling into now. You want to, you know, ramp
5 up the death penalty, you want to pour all
6 this money into executing people, but where's
7 the money to live? So, you know, we don't
8 fully fund schools, we don't fully fund
9 housing.
10 I'm getting letters now from the
11 New York City Housing Authority about the fact
12 that they're about to go bankrupt and we have
13 no money for affordable housing for people --
14 many of which, if they're forced out of this
15 housing, will probably wind up on death row.
16 So I guess they'll wind up with
17 state-subsidized housing either way. Maybe
18 that's the plan.
19 But we don't have any money to
20 subsidize affordable housing, but we can put
21 more money, good money after bad into this.
22 This is simply not the way. I want my
23 community to be safe, like I know everybody
24 here wants that we want our communities to be
25 safe. We want our police officers safe, we
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1 want our peace officers safe, we want our
2 corrections officers safe.
3 But unfortunately, Mr. President,
4 this isn't the way. I'll be voting nay.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
6 you, Senator Parker.
7 Senator Maziarz.
8 SENATOR MAZIARZ: Thank you,
9 Mr. President. Hopefully to close.
10 Mr. President, this is a great
11 emotional debate. And really what I think
12 we're debating is not the death penalty for
13 those who would kill police officers, although
14 that's specifically what this bill is about.
15 But we know -- and the conversation kind of
16 drifts off here -- this is really a debate
17 about whether there should be a death penalty
18 in the state of New York.
19 And my good friend and colleague
20 Senator Duane read some very emotional
21 statements about individuals just before they
22 were being executed. Unfortunately, we don't
23 have any testimony here about the last words
24 of a 20-year-old college student, young woman,
25 life ahead of her, doing great in life, while
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1 some perpetrator has his hands around her neck
2 and is choking her last breath out of her body
3 and killing her.
4 We don't have the last words of an
5 80-year-old widow living alone as a burglar
6 didn't find what he wanted and put the gun in
7 front of her face and pulled the trigger. We
8 don't know what her last words.
9 We don't know the last words of the
10 7-year-old child who was raped and beaten to
11 death. We don't know what that child's last
12 words were.
13 You know, one reference was made,
14 and it's always made, to the Assembly having
15 hearings. You know, I asked Jill Cahill's
16 sister -- I have referenced Jill Cahill on
17 this floor many times, and will until the day
18 I don't serve here anymore -- she wanted to
19 testify at those Assembly hearings. And they
20 told her, no, not really, your side will be
21 well represented and your testimony will be
22 too graphic when you talk about how her
23 husband poured arsenic down her throat.
24 Poured arsenic down her throat.
25 You know, we talked about the death
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1 penalty being a deterrent. And, you know,
2 again statistics and citing that it's not a
3 deterrent. I don't know, I think it's a
4 deterrent.
5 There was an individual by the name
6 of Arthur Shawcross in Monroe County, the city
7 of Rochester. Arthur Shawcross raped, beat
8 and murdered two young children in the 1960s.
9 And of course with our liberal laws and our
10 liberal judges that we have in the Court of
11 Appeals, eventually Arthur Shawcross gets out
12 of jail. Arthur Shawcross, shortly after he
13 got out of jail, proceeded to murder women in
14 the city of Rochester and in Monroe County.
15 Arthur Shawcross was convicted of
16 murdering 12 women in Monroe County. You know
17 who they were? Drug dealers, prostitutes. He
18 murdered them -- and by the way, he said -- he
19 was convicted of murdering 12; it was more
20 like 20, was one of the comments he made.
21 You know what Arthur Shawcross
22 would do? He would dump the bodies in remote
23 areas of Monroe County, and he would come back
24 days later and sometimes weeks later and he
25 would urinate on the bodies. That's how he
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1 got caught, by returning to the scene of where
2 he dumped those bodies.
3 Is the death penalty a deterrent?
4 I'll tell you this much. If Arthur Shawcross
5 had been executed for murdering, beating and
6 raping those two young children, there would
7 be 12 to 24 women in the city of Rochester
8 maybe alive today.
9 Mr. President, I wholeheartedly
10 support this bill. Thank you.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
12 you.
13 Is there any other Senator wishing
14 to be heard? Any other Senator wishing to
15 debate? The debate is closed.
16 Senator Golden, to close.
17 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you,
18 Mr. President.
19 I have listened to this debate here
20 today and have heard that the statistics that
21 were used were debunked in January of 2007.
22 Well, I wish my colleague had further went
23 down in LexisNexis to March 29th of 2007, in
24 the Supreme Court, which said most recent --
25 the study that I've quoted -- the most recent
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1 and most methodical, advanced scholarship on
2 the issue. And it did say, though, that the
3 debate will continue.
4 I listened to Senator Duane read
5 off a number of letters. And each one of the
6 letters said that they were sorry, most of
7 them, and said that they were responsible for
8 their actions. Well, they're darn right they
9 were responsible for their actions. They took
10 a life and they paid for it with their lives.
11 I've listened to -- the most
12 disingenuous portion of this debate was
13 putting forward a 22-page bill, which of
14 course was to create an issue so the Senate
15 Democrats wouldn't have to vote on the death
16 penalty. And then, in their own statement,
17 said they weren't going to vote for the death
18 penalty anyway.
19 It's a joke. Officers are dying
20 across this state, and my colleagues think
21 this is a joke, that we can pass all sorts of
22 legislation with no intention of voting for
23 it. Even if we had voted for your amendment,
24 you would not have voted for the bill.
25 Is that what we're going to tell
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1 the officers and the state troopers, the
2 correction officers? Is that what we're going
3 to all the people that work for government?
4 Is that what we're going to tell them, it's a
5 joke? It's not a joke.
6 Then I heard it was black and white
7 issues. Of course I guess nobody wanted to do
8 their homework on that either. Because when
9 you see the numbers on that in 2005, 60 people
10 were executed in this country. Thirty-eight
11 were white, 19 were black, the rest were
12 Hispanic. In 2006, 53 inmates were executed.
13 Thirty-two were white, 21 were black. And
14 since 1977 to 2005, 1,000 people have been
15 executed. Fifty-eight percent were white, 34
16 percent were black, and 7 percent were
17 Hispanic.
18 I've listened to every argument
19 possible here today, and not one of them, not
20 one of them is legitimate. And the only thing
21 I do know is that we buried 10 officers in a
22 year and a half, five already this year --
23 five this year -- and 57 across the nation.
24 Fifty-seven officers across the nation. We
25 must think we're somebody different here.
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1 Thirty-eight states have the death penalty,
2 and the United States government has the death
3 penalty. But we think we're different.
4 And that's why we're going to see
5 the deaths of police officers and the deaths
6 of state troopers continue to go up, we're
7 going to see homicides across this state
8 continue to go up, and we're going to start to
9 see crime go out of control here in this state
10 again. Because nobody here wants to take
11 responsibility for their actions.
12 The right thing to do here is to
13 vote for this bill. The right thing is to
14 send a message across this state that we care
15 for our officers and we care for the people
16 that live in this state. The right thing to
17 do here is to vote yes and to send this over
18 to the Assembly and then to the Governor for
19 his signature, and send the right message to
20 the 19.5 million people that live here in this
21 great state and to each and every police
22 officer and state trooper across the cities
23 and state of New York.
24 I vote aye, Mr. President. Thank
25 you.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
2 you, Senator Golden.
3 Read the last section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
5 act shall take effect immediately.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
7 the roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
10 Senator Maltese, to explain his vote.
11 SENATOR MALTESE: Mr. President,
12 I've listened to the debate this year and I've
13 listened to the debate over many of these
14 years. I have not heard a single argument
15 from the opposition to this bill that really
16 would explain the lack of a death penalty to
17 the widows and the families of those law
18 enforcement officers that would be protected
19 to some extent by this bill.
20 I heard my good colleague Senator
21 Schneiderman say that in his experience he has
22 not come across people who would be deterred
23 from committing a grievous crime because of
24 the death penalty.
25 Well, I can say in my 3 1/2 years
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1 as a prosecutor, as deputy chief of the
2 homicide bureau, that I spoke to perpetrators
3 and would-be perpetrators who explained how
4 they did not carry a deadly weapon or did not
5 load their firearms because they were
6 concerned that they might be subject to a
7 death penalty.
8 I disagree with those that would
9 say that our correction officers would not be
10 somewhat protected because those same felons,
11 those same perpetrators within the
12 correctional institution would know full well
13 that they would face the ultimate penalty
14 rather than adding a life sentence onto a life
15 sentence onto a life sentence.
16 Mr. President, this bill should be
17 passed here and now so that we can at least
18 say we have attempted to do something and we
19 have done something to protect the lives of
20 our law enforcement officers.
21 Mr. President, I vote aye.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
23 you, Senator. Senator Maltese will be
24 recorded in the affirmative.
25 Announce the results.
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1 I'm sorry. Senator
2 Hassell-Thompson, please, to explain her vote.
3 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
4 you, Mr. President. To explain my vote. Just
5 very quickly. I'll read this because it will
6 go faster.
7 I'm voting no because I believe
8 sincerely that the system of capital
9 punishment violates the constitutional
10 guarantee of equal protection under the law
11 under the 14th Amendment of the State
12 Constitution.
13 Equal protection requires that the
14 state laws treat an individual in the same
15 manner as others in similar conditions and
16 situations.
17 The death penalty is imposed in a
18 manner that differentiates among defendants
19 based on their race or the race of the victim.
20 The death sentence is disproportionately
21 imposed on minority defendants and in cases
22 where the victim is white.
23 The New York State Constitution
24 provides greater protection against
25 discrimination than the federal Constitution.
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1 And because of that, the death penalty would
2 and should fail under state equal-protection
3 constitutional analysis.
4 The antidiscrimination clause of
5 the State Constitution explicitly outlaws
6 discrimination, no matter what the source, on
7 the basis of race, color or religion.
8 The broader scope of equal
9 protection provided under the New York State
10 Constitution could not countenance a pattern
11 of unequal application of the death penalty
12 where defendants charged with killing white
13 victims are 4.3 times more likely to be
14 sentenced to death as defendants charged with
15 killing blacks, where it is more likely than
16 not that the race of the victim will determine
17 whether a defendant receives a death sentence,
18 and where cases involving black defendants and
19 white victims are more likely to result in a
20 death sentence than cases featuring any other
21 racial combination of defendant and victim.
22 Brooklyn Law School, Ursula
23 Bentele.
24 Mr. President, I will be voting no.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
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1 you, Senator Hassell-Thompson. You will be
2 recorded in the negative.
3 Announce the results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
5 the negative on Calendar Number 639 are
6 Senators Adams, Breslin, Connor, Diaz, Dilan,
7 Duane, Gonzalez, Hassell-Thompson, Huntley,
8 L. Krueger, Montgomery, Oppenheimer, Parker,
9 Perkins, Sabini, Sampson, Savino,
10 Schneiderman, Serrano, Smith, Stavisky,
11 Stewart-Cousins, Thompson and Valesky.
12 Ayes, 37. Nays, 24.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
14 bill is passed.
15 Senator Robach.
16 SENATOR ROBACH: We're going to
17 lay 642 aside for the day, Mr. President.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
19 Calendar Number 642 is laid aside for the day.
20 Senator Robach.
21 SENATOR ROBACH: Yes,
22 Mr. President. Is there any further business
23 at the desk?
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
25 is no further business at the desk, Senator.
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1 SENATOR ROBACH: One quick
2 announcement. There will be an immediate
3 meeting of the Senate Committee on Conference
4 Committees in Room 332.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
6 will be an immediate meeting of the Senate
7 Committee on Conference Committees in the
8 Majority Conference Room, 332.
9 SENATOR ROBACH: There being
10 nothing else, I recommend that we adjourn
11 until Tuesday, May 15th, at 3:00 p.m. Move
12 and also recommend it, Mr. President.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: On
14 motion, the Senate stands adjourned until
15 Tuesday, May 15th, at 3:00 p.m.
16 (Whereupon, at 6:30 p.m., the
17 Senate adjourned.)
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