‘Wendy’s Massacre’ Killer Death Sentence Overturned, Leaving One Death Row Inmate
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New York State has only one inmate left on death row following a Court of Appeals decision to overturn the death sentence of Robert Shulman, convicted of murdering and dismembering three women on Long Island.
The lone man on death row, John Taylor, was sentenced to death in January 2003 for the murder of two employees at a Wendy’s in Queens. He was also convicted of commanding his mentally retarded accomplice to shoot five others, three of whom died. The killings, which took place on May 24, 2000, are known as the “Wendy’s massacre.” Analysts say they doubt his death sentence will stand. Shulman, a former postal worker, in 1999 was convicted in Suffolk County court of bludgeoning three prostitutes to death and dismembering their bodies in the early 1990s . He was later convicted of two more murders.
On Tuesday, the state Court of Appeals voided his death sentence on grounds that, because only those who stand trial and do not plead guilty in capital cases can receive the death penalty, such cases represent an unconstitutional two-tier penalty system. His defenders at the Legal Aid Society cited two previous murderers in New York – Darrel Harris and Angel Luis Mateo – whose death sentences were voided on similar grounds.
The president of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, Richard Deiter, said the case could be seen as “another nail in the coffin” of New York State’s death penalty statute, which the Court of Appeals found unconstitutional in June 2004.
In its five-to-three decision in the case of People v. Stephen LaValle, the court found that the 1995 law might unconstitutionally compel jurors to vote for execution because of the instructions it required judges to give them. If they cannot decide unanimously between a sentence of death or life without parole, judges must tell them the court would give a lesser sentence of life with the possibility of parole after 20 or 25 years.
“The deadlock instruction gives rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that one or more jurors who cannot bear the thought that a defendant may walk the streets again after serving 20 to 25 years will join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence,” Judge G.B. Smith wrote in the court’s majority decision.
“Under the present statute, the death penalty may not be imposed. … We cannot, however, ourselves craft a new instruction, because to do so would usurp legislative prerogative,” the decision continued.
Although some prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty in new cases, “New York does not have a functioning death penalty law,” Mr. Deiter said.
He said capital punishment has cost New York State $170 million in court, prison, and bureaucratic cost since Governor Pataki signed it into law in 1995, a major victory at the time. Since then, seven people have been sentenced to death, and none executed.
Spokesmen from Mr. Pataki’s offices in Albany and New York City did not return repeated requests for comment.