New York's last inmate on death row was resentenced to life without parole.

New York's last inmate on death row was resentenced to life without parole. John B. Taylor, 43, had been sentenced to death on Nov. 26, 2002 (see) for his role in the May 24, 2000 massacre of 5 employees of a restaurant. His sentence was overturned on Oct. 23 (see) by the State Court of Appeals that sentenced he could not be put to death because of the June 24, 2004 sentence of the same court that had ruled that an instruction judges were legally required to make to jurors in capital cases was unconstitutional, thus declaring the whole capital law unconstitutional. Since then the capital law has not been changed, and that meand that the death penalty in the state of New York is under a de facto moratorium. Today Judge Randall Eng sentenced Taylor to life without parole, and now the death row is empty.
Taylor’s victims were: Jean Auguste, Anita Smith, Ramon Nazario, Jeremy Mele and Ali Ibadat. Taylor’s accomplice, Craig Godineaux, who is mildly retarded, is serving life in prison without parole.