NY1 VIDEO: As NY1 News revisits its 20-year history, the station looks back at reporter Annika Pergament's March 7, 1995 coverage of then Governor George Pataki's signing of a bill legalizing the use of capital punishment.
NY1 FOLLOW-UP: The battle over the death penalty would wind its way through the courts for more than nine years, although no one was ever executed during that time.
In June of 2004, New York's highest court would rule the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional. An amended law would have to be passed for the death penalty to be reinstated, and there's been no serious push in the legislature to do so.