Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty Appeal For Man Convicted Of Murdering 2 NYPD Officers

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Federal prosecutors will no longer pursue a death penalty sentence for the “intellectually disabled” man who shot two Staten Island police officers more than a decade ago.

Ronnell Wilson, 34, was sentenced to die by lethal injection in 2007 for fatally shooting Detectives Rodney J. Andrews and James V. Nemorin in Staten Island in March 2003, the New York Times reported at the time.

The sentence was overturned in appeals court in 2010 and a second death sentence, delivered in 2013, was rescinded by a Brooklyn federal judge, according to the Times.

Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Brooklyn's Federal District Court determined that Wilson, the child of two substance abusers, suffered from limited mental and emotional capacities and therefore was not be eligible for execution, the Times reported.

Federal prosecutors continued to pursue the death penalty but announced Monday that the appeal would be dropped.

“After further consideration of all the pertinent legal issues, the government has decided not to
pursue an appeal of the district court’s finding that Ronell Wilson was intellectually disabled,” Acting Brooklyn US Attorney Bridget Rohde said in a statement.

“Our decision now does not change our view that it was proper to seek the death penalty against Wilson.”

Michael Palladino, the head of the NYPD detectives union, told the New York Post he was disappointed by the decision.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office did a magnificent job proving that Wilson deserved the death penalty in two separate trials,” Palladino said. “But convincing the court that he has any intellect seems an insurmountable task.”

Wilson now faces a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said.

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