Death Sentence Is First Under Revived N.Y. Law
A former prison guard was sentenced to death Saturday for murdering three people in 1996 during a robbery at an illegal social club, making him the first person in New York to receive a death sentence since the state revived capital punishment.
Jurors deliberated 22 hours over four days before deciding that Darrel K. Harris, 40, should die by injection for the murders during the failed robbery.
Republican Gov. George Pataki made the death penalty a central plank of his successful 1994 campaign and signed it into law in 1995. His predecessor, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, had vetoed such legislation for 12 straight years.
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