New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
New York State correction officers have peace officer status under . This authorizes them:Prior to the 2008 repeal of the death penalty, the male death row was at the Clinton Correctional Facility and the female death row was at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. On October 23, 2007, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in the case "People v. John Taylor" that the last death sentence must be dismissed based on a previous ruling in the case "People v. LaValle".
Felony murder and the death penalty in the United States
Faced with the objective evidence suggesting that legislatures and sentencing juries did not uniformly reject the death penalty for "all" defendants convicted of felony murder, the Court had to limit the death penalty to a discrete and narrow category of felony murder defendants based on its estimation of which category would best effectuate the goals of retribution and deterrence. The "Enmund" Court stressed that the propriety of the death penalty must be measured in light of Enmund's "own" conduct. The "Tison" Court added that historically, the individualized determination incorporates an assessment of the mental state with which the defendant commits a crime, because a more culpable mental state merits a more severe punishment. In "Woodson v. North Carolina", the Court had struck down a mandatory death penalty statute because it failed to provide for individualized consideration at sentencing. The rule fashioned by "Enmund" and "Tison" accommodated this concern by ensuring that only felony murder defendants who had a sufficiently culpable mental state received the death penalty.