A New York jury could not unanimously decide on the death penalty for convicted murderer Sayfullo Saipov, so he will automatically receive a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the October 2017 bike path murders.
Saipov, a 35-year-old Islamic extremist, was found guilty on all 28 counts — eight counts of murder, 18 counts of attempted murder, and other terrorism-related charges — in January.
On Oct. 31, 2017, Saipov drove along a bike path in New York City in a rented truck. The truck struck over a dozen and a half people and killed eight of them.
NEW YORK CITY BIKE PATH TERROR SUSPECT FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS
Jurors had been deliberating since last week over whether to sentence Saipov to the death penalty, but they told the judge on Monday that they could not reach the unanimous verdict required by New York state law to bring the harsher punishment.
The use of the death penalty is extremely rare in New York. The state no longer has capital punishment and last executed a prisoner in 1963.
Saipov's death penalty trial was the first of its kind in the state in nearly a decade. The last similar trial saw a federal jury sentence a man to death for killing two New York police detectives in 2007 and again in 2013. The sentences were reversed on appeal.
If Saipov had received capital punishment, it would have been the first federal use of the death penalty in Manhattan since the Cold War espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953.
Saipov's defense attorneys conceded during the trial that Saipov did use his rental truck to drive through a bike path in lower Manhattan in a bid for martyrdom. Prosecutors argued he tried to kill as many people as possible before crashing into a school bus and yelling, "God is great" in Arabic after exiting the vehicle.
Prosecutors said he smiled as he asked for an Islamic State flag for the wall of his room at the hospital where he was being treated.
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Saipov came to the U.S. legally from Uzbekistan in 2010. He lived in Ohio and Florida before moving to Paterson, New Jersey.
The 2017 terror attack was the deadliest in New York City since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.