(January 27, 2005) — ALBANY — The Legislature's top Democrat said Wednesday that he has doubts about whether the state should have a death penalty, throwing into question whether lawmakers will reinstate it.

"I question whether we need a death penalty," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

"I have some doubt whether it's worth it for us to have a death penalty."

Silver, who made his remarks in an interview with the editorial board of the Democrat and Chronicle, has the power to block capital punishment because the Assembly he controls would have to adopt any measure reinstituting the death penalty for it to become law.

Death penalty prosecutions in the state have been suspended since last summer, when the Court of Appeals declared the statute unconstitutional because of a technical flaw.

The court focused on the provision governing what happens when a jury can't reach a decision on sentencing; the law mandated a life sentence with a chance for parole. That could coerce juries into ordering the death penalty rather than risk allowing the offender to return to the streets some day, the court reasoned.

Gov. George Pataki and leaders of the Republican-controlled Senate support a short rewrite that orders a life-without-parole sentence when a jury can't decide.

It has been unclear whether the Assembly would accept such a measure, and Silver hasn't committed himself either way. But Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, said Wednesday he's now sure the Assembly won't act.

"I don't believe he (Silver) will pass a bill," Bruno said in a separate interview with the editorial board.

The last person put to death in New York, Eddie Lee Mays, was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, Westchester County, in 1963. He was convicted of fatally shooting a woman during a robbery.

The law was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.

Starting in 1977, lawmakers regularly passed new death penalty statutes, but Govs. Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo vetoed them. In 1995 the Legislature again passed a statute and the newly elected Pataki signed it.

Seven men have been sent to New York's death row since then.

All four who have had their cases go all the way up the court system have had their death sentences overturned because of different constitutional flaws in the law. The other three had their sentences commuted to life without parole.

Silver, who also was Assembly speaker in 1995, supported the measure then. But now he said the state has a life-without-parole statute on the books to ensure that convicted murderers can't go free. And he said the money spent on defense and appeals could be put to better use.

"We are spending tens of millions of dollars maybe better spent on educating children," he said.

JGGANNET@Yahoo.com