Editing Long Island Rail Road shooting (section)

===Conviction===
Ferguson was convicted on February 17, 1995, of murder of the six passengers who died of their injuries. He was also convicted of attempted murder for wounding nineteen passengers. He received 315 years and eight months to life, meaning his current earliest possible parole date is August 6, 2309. The judge said, "Colin Ferguson will never return to society, and will spend the rest of his natural life in prison." At the sentencing, Judge [[Donald E. Belfi]] called Ferguson a "selfish, self-righteous coward." He also used the sentencing as an opportunity to criticize New York's controversial Sentencing Cap Law, which would have capped each of Ferguson's sentences at 50 years and required that they all be served concurrently had no one died in the massacre, since all of the felonies he committed on the train were part of one occurrence.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Judge Decries Cap On Penalty |work=Newsday |location=Melville, N.Y. |issn=0278-5587 |date=March 23, 1995 |page=A31}}</ref> After his conviction, Ferguson was put in the position to argue in appellate briefs that he had incompetent counsel (himself).<ref>People v. Ferguson (1998) 248 App.Div.2d 725, 670 N.Y.S.2d 327.</ref>

After his sentencing, Ferguson was incarcerated for a time at the [[Attica Correctional Facility]] in upstate New York. He is currently at [[Mid-State Correctional Facility]], near [[Utica, New York|Utica]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pienciak |first=Richard T. |title=Finding Strength After Lirr Tragedy: Ten years ago, a maniac on a commuter train killed 6, wounded 19 and changed untold lives |work=Daily News |date=December 7, 2003 |location=New York |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2003/12/07/2003-12-07_finding_strength_after_lirr_.html |access-date=November 7, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101028100950/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2003/12/07/2003-12-07_finding_strength_after_lirr_.html |archive-date=October 28, 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>