Eddie Mays

Eddie Lee Mays (March 15, 1929 – August 15, 1963) was the last person to be executed by the state of New York. He was convicted of first degree murder and robbery in 1962. Mays was 34 years old at the time of execution.

Early life Eddie Lee Mays was born in Walstonburg, North Carolina, on March 15, 1929. He was the youngest of five children. His father abandoned the family for Baltimore, where he went to prison for murder, when Eddie was 6 months old. Mays dropped out of school when he was 14 and spent the next several months working menial jobs in his home town. The gang stole a total of $275 from the bartender and several customers during the robbery.

In a 1988 interview with Manuel Guerriero, who defended Mays, said he and other defense lawyers had convinced the prosecution to make an arrangement lowering his charge to second degree murder, which would have spared his life. Mays rejected the offer, saying he would prefer to be executed.

At Mays' trial, the court heard that he had been part of a gang which had committed 52 robberies in six weeks.

In 1965, the state of New York repealed capital punishment, except for cases involving the murder of a police officer. Although the legislature never fully repealed capital punishment statute, and the state even expanded it in 1995, there were no further executions due to rulings by Furman v. Georgia in 1972 at the Supreme Court and People v. LaValle in 2004 at the New York Court of Appeals.