Lawmakers considering death penalty hear both sides

By MICHAEL HILL
Associated Press Writer

January 25, 2005, 2:16 PM EST

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A veteran prosecutor whose death sentence against a wife killer was overturned told lawmakers Tuesday that New York's capital punishment law needs serious fixes to work effectively.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick sounded frustrated at times as he testified about how New York's highest court vacated the death sentence of James Cahill in 2003. The ruling was one of several by the state Court of Appeals that has effectively left the 10-year-old law in limbo.

The Assembly is holding public hearings as it decides what should be done next. But testimony Tuesday _ ranging from a prosecutor who sought the death penalty to adamant opponents _ showed how controversial the issue remains.

"We as a civilized people must not resort to vengeance," Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard, speaking for the New York State Catholic Conference, told Assembly members. "... Revenge through execution does not heal the wounds, control the rage, fill the emptiness or bring the anticipated `closure' so many hope to find."

Fitzpatrick sidestepped arguing the merits of the death penalty to focus on the case of Cahill, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 1998 for poisoning his wife Jill to death with potassium cyanide. She was in a hospital at the time, recuperating from a severe beating Cahill inflicted on her six months earlier with a baseball bat at their home near Syracuse.

A divided Court of Appeals vacated Cahill's death sentence, saying there was not enough evidence to support the aggravating factors that allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Specifically, they said a burglary charge could not be sustained because, although Cahill entered his wife's hospital room with the intent of poisoning her with potassium cyanide, he did not steal anything.

The court ordered Cahill to be resentenced on a second-degree murder count. He is now serving a 37 1/2-year prison term.

Fitzgerald told lawmakers that Cahill meticulously plotted his wife's murder and that kind of premeditation should be enough to sustain a capital charge. He said the appeal court's ruling negated months of hard work by jurors.

"To dismiss their decision with tortured reasoning is unacceptable," Fitzgerald told lawmakers. "And if indeed your decision is to reinstate the death penalty, then give the prosecutors of this great state a statute that is workable."

The death blow to New York's capital punishment came in June in a Court of Appeals ruling that said jury instruction provisions in the law could result in some jurors voting for death against a defendant when they really don't want to. No inmate had been executed under the law.

Gov. George Pataki and his fellow Republicans in charge of the state Senate say they're eager to get a law back on the books. Pataki was first elected governor in large part by promising to bring back the death penalty in his 1994 campaign against anti-capital punishment Gov. Mario Cuomo.

The Assembly _ where more majority Democrats voted against restoring the death penalty in 1995 than for it _ has opted to move slower.

Seeking momentum, New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty held a news conference before the hearing Tuesday featuring men wrongfully convicted of murder and relatives of murder victims. Bruce and Janice Grieshaber, who became advocates for eliminating parole after their daughter was slain, said killing her killer would not bring Jenna back.

"Will our lives change if he were murdered?" Bruce Grieshaber asked. "No. Our lives remain the same."