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 Ferguson's sentence at 50 years had no one died in the massacre because all of the felonies he committed on the train were part of one occurrence, therefore all sentences would have been served concurrently and capped at 50 years. After his conviction, Ferguson was put in the position to argue in appellate briefs that he had incompetent counsel (himself).