The newspapers and media have been filled with reports of the manhunt for Ralph “Bucky” Phillips. He’s the prison escapee and career criminal now believed to have wounded two state troopers and killed one. He apparently stole 41 guns from a gun shop and 15 cars in his reckless escape and savage hide and seek from the hands of law enforcement officers in western New York and northern Pennsylvania.

In New York, if he’s convicted of murdering Trooper Joseph Longobardo, he will get life in prison, where he can threaten prison guards and try to escape again.

Cases like this are why the New York State Senate has passed legislation I cosponsored that will reinstate the death penalty for criminals who kill police officers. The senate also passed a bill that would amend the state’s death penalty law to fix a provision that was ruled invalid by the state Court of Appeals.

In 2004, the court of appeals overturned death penalty sentences, saying that judges were improperly required to instruct jurors in capital cases that if they deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict during the penalty phase of a trial, the judge would impose a sentence that would leave the defendant eligible for parole after 20 to 25 years.