New York's highest appellate court today upheld a lower court's tossing of the death penalty for John Taylor, the killer of five at a Wendy's restaurant in 2000.

The 4-3 ruling [pdf] by the state’s highest court reinforces its ruling in 2004 that a central provision of the state’s capital punishment law violates the state constitution. It would take action by the Legislature to bring back the death penalty, but Assembly Democrats have shown little inclination to do so.

In 2004, the high court ruled that an instruction judges were legally required to make to jurors in capital cases was unconstitutional. A judge was required to tell jurors that if they could not choose unanimously between a sentence of death and one of life without parole, he or she would impose a sentence that would make the defendant eligible for parole after 20 to 25 years.

Taylor is the last of New York's death row inmates. The state does not now have a death penalty law and it's unlikely the legislature will pass one.