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Now that the state Assembly has decided to debate whether it should restore New York's now-defunct death penalty law, I offer this advice:

Do nothing. Let the death penalty stay dead.

Yesterday several hundred people showed up at a public hearing in Manhattan - the consensus seemed to be that it's time to put the death penalty away for good.

"It's political, it's revengeful, and it ultimately doesn't work," said David Kaczynski, head of the advocacy group New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. The brother of notorious "Unabomber" serial killer Ted Kaczynski, he's been campaigning against the death penalty ever since he turned in his mentally ill brother to federal authorities in 1996, only to have them try to impose the death penalty. Ted Kaczynski eventually got a plea deal that gave him life without the possibility of parole.

New York went for years without a death penalty, because our Democratic governors wisely kept vetoing it. George Pataki and the State Legislature restored it in 1995. But last June the state's highest court ruled that the law was unconstitutional because the required jury instructions tended to coerce jurors to recommend death sentences.

The ruling left life in prison without the possibility of parole as the most severe penalty available for the most heinous crimes. And it should stay that way. During the nine years that the death penalty was in effect in New York, only seven people were sentenced to die, and none was executed. Of those who got the death penalty, three had their sentences vacated for a variety of reasons.

During the same period we learned a lot more about the capricious, racially and dangerous way the death penalty is administered. Thanks to the new DNA science, more than 100 death row inmates nationwide have been exonerated and released from prison.

The most dramatic reaction was in Illinois, where Gov. George Ryan was prompted to commute the death sentences of 167 people on his state's death row after 13 of them were proven innocent.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who has been prosecuting criminal cases for 30 years, is one of the state's most adamant opponents of the death penalty. He told the Assembly members that he opposes it because it doesn't deter crime, it's expensive, its only reason is vengeance, its application "mostly closely resembles the lottery," and its main purpose is to allow public officials to prove how tough they are on crime.

Morgenthau quoted FBI figures showing that the murder rate is higher in states with the death penalty than in those without it. It was 44 percent higher in 1996, and 36 percent higher in 2002.

"They need to stop waltzing around and just get rid of it," he said of the Assembly's debate.

The matter is now totally in the Assembly's hands. When the Court of Appeals struck down the 1995 law, the state senate, at Gov. Pataki's urging, quickly passed a new one. But many of the Assembly's current members weren't around when the old law was passed, and they didn't want to rubber stamp a new law.

The political climate has also changed in the past nine years. Not only has the crime rate dropped dramatically - there were 1,183 homicides in New York City in 1995, compared with 595 in 2003 - but the state and local governments have spent an estimated $170 million administering the death penalty system. Meanwhile, a majority of New Yorkers say they favor life in prison over the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Pataki should back off, and not pressure the Assembly to pass a new bill.

The evidence of recent years suggests that the death penalty is applied in a capricious and discriminatory manner, that it sends innocent people to death row, and wastes time, energy and money that could be spent in more productive ways. New York doesn't need to bring it back. The Assembly could put it to a vote, and vote it down. But better yet, it should let it die a natural death.

Sheryl McCarthy's e-mail address is mccart731@aol.com.