George Pataki
Polls showed that the majority of New Yorkers wanted the state's death penalty laws restored. A bill to restore the death penalty passed the Legislature several years in a row, only to be vetoed by Mario Cuomo. Pataki made the issue a top priority of his and when the bill reached his desk he signed it into law in 1995. The state's Court of Appeals later ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in the form in which it was written (in the case of People v. LaValle), and the State Legislature has not passed a bill to restore it in a new form. During Pataki's 12 years as governor, not a single person was executed in New York State.
Louisiana State Penitentiary
In 1972, in the US Supreme Court decision in "Furman v. Georgia", the court found application of the death penalty so arbitrary under existing state laws that it was unconstitutional. It suspended executions for all persons on death row in the United States (slightly more than 600, overwhelmingly male) under current state laws in the United States, and ordered state courts to judicially amend their sentences to the next lower level of severity, generally life in prison. Louisiana passed a new death penalty statute, which was overturned by the state supreme court in 1977 for its application to convictions for rape. The death penalty statute was amended again, effective September 1977. Louisiana did not execute any prisoners until 1983.