ALBANY, N.Y. - Declaring it has become “open season on law enforcement people,” the Republican leader of the state Senate demanded Wednesday that Gov. Eliot Spitzer use his influence to bring back the death penalty.
The call from Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno came in the wake of the shooting of three state troopers in less than 24 hours. One of the three troopers died, the second to die in a manhunt since September.
Bruno said his chamber would approve legislation next week to bring back the death penalty for the killing of police officers and prison guards and in cases of deaths caused by terrorists.
But Bruno said it was up to the state’‘s new Democratic governor to use his leverage with the state Assembly’‘s Democratic majority to win approval for the measure there. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has rejected past calls for such legislation since a New York Court of Appeals ruling in 2005 effectively nullified the death penalty in New York.
Later, after visiting with the family of one of the surviving troopers at an Albany hospital, Spitzer offered a rebuke of sorts to Bruno at a state Capitol news conference, saying that “on this day, at this particular moment, I think it is best to simply reflect on the extraordinary service and sacrifice of our troopers.”
“I know that here at the Capitol, there is an ongoing debate over legislative initiatives and politics,” Spitzer added. “Now is not the moment for that debate. There will be much time for that later.”
Spitzer declined to answer questions, but spokesman Darren Dopp, asked if the governor thought Bruno’‘s comments were inappropriate said: “I think you can deduce that from what he was saying, yeah.”
Dopp, noting that Spitzer favored the death penalty for those who kill police officers, said the governor would meet soon with legislative leaders, “perhaps as early as next week.”
Silver noted that his chamber has just passed a number of bills Wednesday to crack down on illegal guns and make New Yorkers safer from gun violence.
“The proliferation of guns is a crisis in this state and this country,” Silver said in a statement offering condolences to the dead trooper’‘s family. “Our hearts go out to the troopers who have been wounded,” Silver said.
The New York Legislature, at the insistence of newly elected Gov. George Pataki, approved death penalty legislation in 1995, but the Court of Appeals, New York’‘s top tribunal, gutted the measure with a subsequent series of negative rulings and in 2004 ruled that a sentencing provision made the law unconstitutional.
At a state Capitol news conference Wednesday with Bruno, state Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco noted he had attempted to attach the new death penalty bill to a piece of Assembly legislation Tuesday night, only to see 96 members of the 150 members vote that his proposed amendment was “not germane.” That effectively killed it.
But Tedisco said he was heartened by the fact that seven Assembly Democrats had joined his GOP colleagues to support the amendment. Tedisco predicted Spitzer could sway enough other Assembly Democrats to turn the tide. Spitzer has said he supports the death penalty in the killing of police officers and for acts of terrorism, but has not made that a priority of his new administration.
Tedisco said it was time for the governor to do so.
“This is the Wild West out there,” said the Assembly GOP leader.
“Enough is enough,” said John York, Livingston County’‘s sheriff and the chairman of the executive committee of the New York State Sheriff’'s Association.
Didn’t take long for opportunists to jump on it.
wait is this the same trooper that got shot in the back of the head by other troopers?
too bad his own fucking people killed the trooper
[quote=“Violator,post:4,topic:28433"”]
too bad his own fucking people killed the trooper
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This is true, but cops have been getting shot all over the place lately. I think the death penalty is not the answer though. The real problem is the guns, but thats a whole other debate that can be legitmately argued by both sides. Maybe some of these cops should be trained more thoroughly in procedure and firearms too :gotme:
:word: i agree with the part about guns, but as far as being trained more thoroughly i dont agree, the troopers were in their own form of SWAT so you know they were trained pretty much the same way as the SWAT team, the only reason this happened was because the trooper was shot in his body armor which made him fall to his knees, then the bullet from the other gun struck him in the helmet, being trained better IMO wouldnt have changed what happened
I can’t tell you how much I support this piece of legislation!
I know from AJ Sperr’s case that the guys who shot him could have been deterred by a death penalty. One of them testified against the other that he (the shooter) asked “do you want to go to jail for a short time or a long time?”
[quote=“99Civic-EX,post:6,topic:28433"”]
:word: i agree with the part about guns, but as far as being trained more thoroughly i dont agree, the troopers were in their own form of SWAT so you know they were trained pretty much the same way as the SWAT team, the only reason this happened was because the trooper was shot in his body armor which made him fall to his knees, then the bullet from the other gun struck him in the helmet, being trained better IMO wouldnt have changed what happened
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If he wasn’t shot in the head, it would of been in the back. If this is the best a SP version of SWAT can do, then they need to stick to the highway. Clearing a house is no joke, but the US army does it every day in iraq, and i’ve not heard off too many guys taking rounds to the head from his buddy. Some look into the retraining is needed. I believe in the death penalty, but i think that LEO’s are not some super human being, and if they wana have it for every murder, than fine. But don’t tell me that shooting at the cops will get you fried, but killing your wife won’t. No human is worth more than another, at least when were talking citizens.