NEW YORK—Jurors began hearing testimony Monday to help them decide whether an Islamic extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path should get a death sentence, an extraordinarily rare penalty in a state that hasn’t had an execution in 60 years.
Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted last month in the 2017 attack, in which he intentionally drove a truck at high speed down a path along the Hudson River, running over bicyclists on a sunny morning just hours before the city’s Halloween celebrations.
The same jurors who found Saipov guilty returned to work after a two-week break to hear from additional witnesses in the trial’s penalty phase. Anything less than a unanimous vote for death will mean Saipov will spend the rest of his life in prison….