Release Date:  September 7, 2007
Contact:  Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345

The New York Court of Appeals will hold oral argument this Monday (September 10) which one legal group hopes will result in a decision to restore the state’s never-used death penalty law.

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case of People v. Taylor, challenging the validity of the court’s 2004 ruling in People v. LaValle, which threw out the entire death penalty law because of a jury instruction required at the sentencing hearing.

The Foundation argues that the state’s death penalty law contains a severability clause, which requires that any provision held unconstitutional be stricken, leaving the rest of the law intact.

“The LaValle ruling unnecessarily threw out the baby with the bathwater, denying the will of the people of New York for a functioning death penalty law,” said Foundation Legal Director Kent Scheidegger. “This case presents an opportunity for the court to correct the error and uphold the sentence this murderer deserves,” he added.

The Taylor case involves the May 2000 robbery-massacre in a Wendy’s restaurant in Flushing, New York, by John Taylor and Craig Godineaux. During the robbery, the two men forced the restaurant’s seven employees into a freezer, bound and gagged them, put bags over their heads, and shot them all, one at a time. Five of the victims were killed. The next day Taylor went to his sister’s house in Long Island, which was under police surveillance. He was subsequently arrested with the murder weapon and some of the stolen money in his possession.

The facts presented at trial, as Taylor’s appellate lawyers point out in their argument, “amply established Taylor’s guilt of two of the counts of first-degree murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to die . . . .” Taylor “did not dispute them at trial, so, on appeal, he does not challenge these convictions or otherwise ask for their reversal.”

Prior to trial, Taylor’s defense attorney challenged the sentencing jury instructions required under New York’s death penalty law. Specifically, the defense claimed that the instruction regarding a deadlock was coercive. The trial judge denied this claim.

At the sentencing hearing, the jury considered the details of the Wendy’s murders and mitigating evidence about Taylor’s difficult childhood and his positive relationship with his children. The judge sent the jury into deliberations after giving the instructions required under New York law, including the deadlock instruction as follows: “The court must also instruct the jury that in the event the jury fails to reach unanimous agreement with respect to the sentence, the court will sentence the defendant to a term of imprisonment with a minimum term of between twenty and twenty-five years and a maximum term of life.” Two days later, a unanimous jury recommended that Taylor receive the death sentence.

While Taylor’s direct appeal was pending, the New York Court of Appeals announced, in its LaValle decision, that the jury instruction Taylor had challenged prior to his trial was invalid because it might influence the jury to recommend a death sentence rather than deadlock and give the judge the option to sentence the murderer to a 20- to 25-year prison term with the chance of parole.

To accommodate the possibility that some portion of the law might be struck down, the New York law included a severability clause. This clause requires that any provision held unconstitutional be stricken while the remaining provisions continue to be enforced. In spite of this, the court held that the entire death penalty law had to be overturned.

Earlier this year, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment, joined the case to encourage a decision to overturn the LaValle ruling with respect to its invalidation of the state’s death penalty law. The Foundation’s amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief argues that the decision’s analysis on this point is deeply flawed. The Foundation cites New York Court of Appeals precedent holding that the Legislature’s intent to enact a valid law must be respected. CJLF also argues that courts in other states which have determined that an instruction was improper have removed it and created a replacement, while leaving the law’s other provisions in force, reminding the New York court that the severability clause expresses the legislature’s intent for this result.

“The people of New York have the same right to enforcement of the law as the residents of other states,” said Scheidegger. “Hopefully the decision in this case will restore that right,” he added.