The New York Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned the first death sentence imposed under the 1995 law, but upheld key portions of the statute in an opinion that removes Darrel K. Harris from death row while simultaneously rejecting several fundamental challenges to the law.
In a lengthy opinion by Judge Richard C. Wesley, all seven judges agreed that the sentence imposed on Harris cannot stand because it was rooted in a statutory scheme, later stricken by the court, that unconstitutionally burdened the defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The sole dissenter, Judge George Bundy Smith, parted with the majority on several matters of alleged trial error and would have reversed the first-degree murder conviction, but joined the court on all major statutory issues.
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