Capital punishment was outlawed in New York after the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, declared the practice as unconstitutional under the state's constitution in 2004. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling declared existing capital punishment statutes unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia (1972), abolishing the practice of capital punishment in the United States. In 1976, the same court's ruling in Gregg v. Georgia allowed states to reinstate the death penalty. In 1995, Governor George Pataki signed a new statute into law which returned the death penalty in New York by authorizing lethal injection for execution. However, there were no executions before the law was repealed for good in 2004.