from the New York Times 28-09-94

Gov. Mario Cuomo met with editors and reporters of the New York Times for 5 hours 15 minutes on Monday to discuss the issue in the gubernatioral race, his record in 12 years in office, and his goals for a fourth term.

....

CRIME:

Death Penalty

Q. Governor, we've been as this issue for so long that it sometimes doesn't get asked, but would you briefly state for us why you're aginst the death penalty?

Briefly.

A. I tried doing on this what I did for abortion because I couldn't answer - I couldn't answer it briefly, so I wrote a speech for St. Rose of Lima once. And I just hand that out whenpeople ask me:

The whole Western world has given up on the death penalty. Israel voted aginst it in 1954; they got rid of it except for treason. The experience everywhere has been that the death penalty does not deter. As a matter of fact, there is a considerable amount of evidence that the death penalty encourages killing by being a kind of instruction in brutality and more...

You know who is the most honest, I think, one of the most in arguing, it is Ed Kock. Ed Kock will tell you: " Forget about deterrence. All I know is it's right - I feel good, they killed and you should kill them. Period." Call it whatever you want. He's very honest about it. So is my mother. So I don't think it deters. I think it is an instruction in brutality. I think it sends exactly the wrong message. If you make a mistake it is irretrievable, and we have made the mistake 50 times in a half century, eight times in New York. Are you absolutely positive?

And - and I tried to imagine a situation where you make the mistake and you kill somebody and it's clearly a mistake, and there's plenty of evidence of the possibility of that happening. And now his family comes in and says, "Governor, why did you approve of that execution?" " Well, i had to do it, what good did you do with it?"

" Well, the people are all angry, thy're all upset, you know, and they felt better because - ." "Well, how do they fill know that they know that they killed an innocent person as the price of their kind "of nourishing this feeling they have for vindication?"

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, lady and sir, you know, we've just - we felt we had to do it."

What - what kind of answer is that?

What - how can you explain that? ...

Q. Now if we go back to the point that you blocked the death penalty in New York for so many years -

A. Idon't block the death penalty.

Q. by vetoing it.

A. I do not block the death penalty. I voted - I'm trying like heck to -

Q. Well, if you had not vetoed it, it would have been on the books.

A. You could get a two-thirds vote and get it on the books.

Q. O.K. but if you hadn't vetoed it, it would now be on the books. I think that's a given.

A I blocked it, you're right.

Q. Thank you. Why then - why then propose again that it go to a referendum and that the people decide -

A. I don't - I didn't propose it to go a referendum. They propose a costitutional amendment for the death penalty. I said, "If you're going to have a constitutional amendment, it's got to be death penalty or life in prison without parole." I do that every year and every year that ends the argument, and it ended it this year.

Q. But why would you allow it if -

A. Because I may die or lose an election. Because if I lose this election you have the death penalty and that is an abomination especially for his state - tha last great voice for civility.

Forget about it, we're going to have a New York State electrocution. But unless people are ticked - everybody knows it does not deter. Everybody knows it's an instruction in brutality....