Joseph Bruno
Bruno, along with Governor George Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was instrumental in returning the death penalty to New York State in 1995. The New York Court of Appeals (the highest state court in New York) later found the law to be unconstitutional because it gave jurors deadlocked between life without parole and execution no choice but to give eligibility for parole after 25 years; the Court of Appeals feared that jurors faced with this choice would unfairly lean toward a death sentence. In the 10 years after the law was passed, New York's crime rate plummeted without ever seeing an execution, perhaps weakening public support for the death penalty. Silver let the law die in 2005 without much debate.
Green Haven Correctional Facility
Green Haven Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in New York. The prison is located in the Town of Beekman in Dutchess County. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision lists the address as Route 216, Stormville, NY 12582. This prison housed New York's execution chamber during the time the state briefly had the death penalty (but never used it) in the post-"Furman" era. New York's electric chair "Old Sparky" was moved here from Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It was originally a federal prison and now houses maximum security inmates. Green Haven Correctional Facility also operates a Hot Kosher Food Program; because of this, the prison has a large Jewish population. Yale Law School operates the Green Haven Prison Project, a series of seminars among Yale law students and Green Haven inmates on law and policy issues concerning prisons and criminal law.There have been at least two deaths of correction officers in the line of duty.