Capital punishment in New York
In June 2004, the state's highest court ruled in "People v. LaValle" that the state's death penalty statute violated the state constitution, and New York has had an effective moratorium on capital punishment since then. Subsequent legislative attempts at fixing or replacing the statute have failed, and in 2008 then-Governor David Paterson issued an executive order disestablishing New York's death row. Legislative efforts to amend the statute have failed, and death sentences are no longer sought at the state level, though certain crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government are subject to the federal death penalty.
New Jersey Department of Corrections
Prior to the 2007 repeal of the death penalty, the death row for men was in the Capital Sentence Unit (CSU) in the New Jersey State Prison. The same prison housed the death chamber, and the first death by electrocution occurred on December 11, 1907. This unit was first established in 1907. On December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill in which the New Jersey General Assembly passed which abolishes the death penalty, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively eliminate capital punishment since 1965. The day prior, December 16, 2007, Governor Corzine commuted the death sentences of the remaining eight men on death row to "life imprisonment without parole".