Ten years ago a mildly successful Republican state senator in New York won a huge upset — defeating the three-term incumbent governor of New York and Bill Clinton ally, Mario Cuomo. Part of the reason was probably Cuomo fatigue — he had been governor since succeeding Hugh Carey in 1983 and had been Carey’s lieutenant governor before that. But the biggest part of Gov. George Pataki’s victory was his promise to sign into law a statute reinstating the death penalty in New York.
Cuomo had vetoed numerous death penalty statutes. In 1994, New York had terrible crime, especially in New York City (which later dropped precipitously under Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly) and New Yorkers wanted to send the message that the state needed to get tough on crime and, especially, ensure that cop-killers would not walk free after 20-25 years (this was a big issue for supporters of the bills).
True to his word, Pataki signed a death penalty bill. By most measures, it was about as progressive a bill as death penalty provisions could get: requiring instructing jurors of the consequences of their sentencing decisions, setting up an administrative group of lawyers that would set fee rates for defense attorneys in capital cases (to ensure better quality representation), and mandating direct appeals of capital convictions to the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court). Ultimately, the statute seemed designed to insure the rights of the accused, be used only in extreme cases and be constitutional.