DEMS DREADING DEATH-PENALTY KO

Jul 1, 2002

By FREDRIC U. DICKER

NEW YORK'S high court may hand Andrew Cuomo and Carl McCall a political hot potato as soon as today - tossing out New York's popular death-penalty law. The Court of Appeals, known for its liberal-oriented findings, will make its ruling in the first-ever challenge to the state capital-punishment law that passed in 1995 - the year George Pataki became governor.

 Legal experts say the decision will come today, tomorrow or early next week at the latest, just before the court recesses for the summer.

 Many experts expect the court to toss out the death penalty, which public-opinion polls show is overwhelmingly favored by New Yorkers, with tremendous political repercussions.

 Pataki, who defeated Mario Cuomo in 1994, in part because of his strong support for capital punishment, is expected to quickly move to have a new, and presumably constitutional, law drafted and submitted to the Legislature for approval.

 Cuomo and McCall oppose the death penalty but, knowing how popular the measure is, they've both pledged - in what is widely seen as an effort to finesse the issue - that they won't try to change the current law.

 And they've also said they're prepared to carry out executions, despite their own objections to the death penalty.

 Both those positions will quickly become moot if the death penalty is thrown out. That's because Cuomo and McCall will have to say if they would favor a new death-penalty law. If, as expected, they'll say they don't, they'll then have to say if they would sign such a measure if it is passed by the Legislature.

 "Add the death penalty to the long roster of problems the Democratic candidates for governor already have, and you might just as well fold the tent," said one of the state's best-known Democrats about the pending court ruling.

 The death-penalty case before the court involves Darrel K. Harris, convicted of killing three people at Brooklyn's Club Happiness in 1996.

 Harris' state-appointed attorneys have raised 40 constitutional issues to challenge the death penalty law, any one of which could be the basis for a ruling tossing out the statute.

 Since 1995, only six killers in New York have been condemned to death, and none has been executed. New York last executed a prisoner in 1963.

 Key lawmakers are pessimistic that there will be any last-minute agreements on such high priorities as Rockefeller drug-law changes, legislation to ban smoking in restaurants, a clergy-notification bill and a minimum-wage hike before the Legislature returns here tomorrow from a brief recess.

 What is expected to be the final day of the Legislature's regular 2002 session will see approval of a union "neutrality" bill, which bans nonprofit groups from telling employees why they oppose unionization efforts.

 The measure, strongly backed by hospital-workers union leader Dennis Rivera and other politically powerful labor bosses, is supported by Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).