People V. Lavalle (NYS Dealth Penalty) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

People V. Lavalle (NYS Dealth Penalty) - Essay Example d to death but he filed an appeal before the New York Court of Appeals and argued that in view of deadlock instructions of the state, the death penalty was not valid as per Article 1, Section 6 of the state’s constitution. The New York Appeals Court held that section 400.27(10) of New York’s Criminal Procedural Law was not constitutional. The New York Court of Appeals gave this ruling because of contradictions arising from the situation that the sentencing judge had the authority to decide amongst two options. The sentencing judge could impose death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. If the decision amongst the jury became deadlocked the judge was required to convict the offender to 20 - 25 years life imprisonment with parole. LaValle argued that because this third option was less severe relative to the other two, judges were pressurized to reach a consensus although some were not in agreement for the death penalty. Because the state’s deadlock instruct ions are unique there is no immediate impact on the death penalty in other states. But the case reveals how judges are pressurized whereby they are forced to impose the death penalty (Heller, 2008). The decision of the New York Court of Appeals presented the state legislature options to reinstate the death penalty or reinstate the death penalty in a modified way. The legislature decided to make a review of the state’s death penalty statutes by seeking wide ranging opinions from the public. From the wide ranging comments and opinions received from several reputed people and law experts concerns became apparent about the impending legislative changes. It was argued that legislation giving judges only two options by way of death penalty and life imprisonment without parole would not be constitutionally valid because prosecutors would seek elimination of parole possibilities by putting a death notice before the judges (Lentol et al., 2005). The New York State legislature could have redrafted the death