Eddie Lee Mays
Mays would become the last person to be executed by "Old Sparky", New York State's electric chair at Sing Sing prison. The State Electrician was Dow Hover. The electric chair had been the sole method of execution in the State since 1890 (hanging had been abolished in 1888). In 1965, the State of New York repealed the death penalty, except for cases involving the murder of a police officer. Although the legislature never fully repealed the death penalty statute, and the state even expanded it in 1995, there were no further executions because of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and the New York Court of Appeals in 2004.
Ronell Wilson
Prosecutors alleged Wilson was the leader of a violent drug gang called the "Stapleton Crew" (witnesses at the trial denied using that label) that originated in the Stapleton housing projects of Staten Island. He was convicted for murdering NYPD Detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews in a gun sale, then searching their bodies and stealing their car. The victims' family members and fellow police officers greeted pronouncement of his death sentence with cheers and applause; Wilson reacted by sticking his tongue out in their direction.
The case has attracted media attention because of the brutality of the murders as well as the rarity of a death penalty prosecution in New York. Wilson is the first person federally sentenced to the death penalty in New York in over 50 years. Wilson was originally charged in New York state court, but the federal government took over the prosecution after the New York Court of Appeals held that the state's death penalty statute violated the New York State Constitution.