Illinois abolishes death penalty

Illinois abolishes death penalty, commutes sentences of all remaining death row inmates

Christopher Wills
Associated Press
March 9, 2011

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - After two decades of debate about the risk of executing an innocent person, Illinois abolished the death penalty Wednesday, a decision that was certain to fuel renewed calls for other states to do the same.

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has long supported capital punishment, looked drained moments after signing the historic legislation. Lawmakers sent him the measure back in January, but Quinn went through two months of intense personal deliberation before acting. He called it the most difficult decision he has made as governor.

"If the system can't be guaranteed, 100-percent error-free, then we shouldn't have the system," Quinn said. "It cannot stand."

Illinois becomes the 16th state in the nation without a death penalty more than a decade after former Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions out of fear that the justice system could make a deadly mistake.

Quinn also commuted the sentences of all 15 men remaining on death row. They will now serve life in prison with no hope of parole.

In his comments, the governor returned often to the fact that 20 people sent to death row had seen their cases overturned after evidence surfaced that they were innocent or had been convicted improperly.

Death penalty opponents hailed Illinois' decision and predicted it would influence other states.

"This is a domino in one sense, but it's a significant one," said Mike Farrell, the former "MASH" star who is now president of Death Penalty Focus in California.

The executive director of a national group that studies capital punishment said Illinois' move carries more weight than states that halted executions but had not used the death penalty in many years.

"Illinois stands out because it was a state that used it, reconsidered it and now rejected it," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

New Jersey eliminated its death penalty in 2007. New Mexico followed in 2009, although new Republican Gov. Susana Martinez wants to reinstate the death penalty.

In New York, a court declared the state's law unconstitutional in 2004.

The U.S. is one of the few industrialized countries that still practices capital punishment. The European Union, for instance, bans executions by any member nations.

Quinn's decision incensed many prosecutors and relatives of crime victims. Robert Berlin, the state's attorney in DuPage County, west of Chicago, called it a "victory for murderers."

The governor reflected on the issue week after week, speaking with prosecutors, crime victims' families, death penalty opponents and religious leaders. He consulted retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and met with Sister Helen Prejean, the inspiration for the movie "Dead Man Walking.

Quinn "realized that it's a righteous and a moral decision to end this system that almost took my life," said Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who spent 12 years on death row after being wrongly convicted in the 1986 murder of two newlyweds.

In the future, "there won't be any more Randy Steidls that are standing in a court of law that are innocent and facing a sentence of death. At least they'll be alive to prove their innocence on down the road."

A Chicago woman whose teenage son was gunned down in 2006 said the killer, who has never been caught, should not be allowed to breathe the same air she breathes.

"I am a Christian. I never believed in killing nobody else," Pam Bosley said, explaining her change of heart after her son was shot outside a church. "But the pain you suffer every single day, I say take them out."

Quinn said capital punishment was too arbitrary. A prosecutor in one county might seek the death penalty, while another prosecutor dealing with a similar crime might not, he said. And death sentences might be imposed on minorities and poor people more often than on wealthy, white defendants.

A Gallup poll in October found that 64 percent of Americans favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 30 percent opposed it. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The high point of death penalty support, according to Gallup, was in 1994, when 80 percent were in favor.

Doubts about Illinois' death penalty grew steadily throughout the 1990s with each revelation of a person wrongly sentenced to die — people like Anthony Porter.

Porter had ordered his last meal and even been fitted for burial clothes when, just 48 hours before his execution, lawyers won a stay to study the question of whether he was mentally capable of killing. That provided time for a group of Northwestern University students to gather information proving Porter's innocence.

Illinois was also the place where Ryan called for clemency hearings for all death row inmates — proceedings that involved a parade of people describing in heartbreaking detail how their children, parents, siblings and spouses died by violence.

Ultimately, Ryan told his staff, "I can't play God," and he cleared death row in 2003 by commuting 167 death sentences to life in prison and pardoning four people.

That delivered a jolt to the death penalty debate that was felt around the world.

A few years earlier, the Republican governor had halted all executions, and his Democratic successors continued the moratorium. Illinois' last execution was in 1999.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers immediately began discussing legislation for a new, narrower death penalty. They said safeguards added to the system after Ryan cleared death row — protections negotiated in part by President Barack Obama when he was a state senator — had eliminated any real danger of executing an innocent person.

Republican Rep. Jim Durkin of Westchester predicted Quinn will pay a political price if he seeks re-election in four years. Some terrible murder that cries out for the death penalty is bound to occur and grab voters' attention, he said.

Quinn said he would oppose any attempt to reinstate a new version of the death penalty. He also promised to commute the sentence of anyone who might receive a death sentence between now and when the measure takes effect on July 1, a spokeswoman said.

The governor sought to console those whose loved ones had been slain, saying the "family of Illinois" was with them. He said he understands victims will never be healed.

Bill Sloop, a truck driver from Carthage, said he was saddened to think that taxpayers would have to continue feeding, clothing and caring for Daniel Ramsey, the death row prisoner who killed his 12-year-old daughter and wounded her older sister in a 1996 shooting spree.

Quinn "shouldn't have done what he did," Sloop said.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan appealed directly to Quinn to veto the bill. Quinn's lieutenant governor, Sheila Simon, herself a former prosecutor, urged him to sign it.

Illinois has executed 12 men since 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated. The last person put to death was Andrew Kokoraleis on March 17, 1999. At the time, the average length of stay on death row was 13 years.

Kokoraleis, convicted of murdering and mutilating a 21-year-old woman, died by lethal injection.

No system is 100% fool proof but with modern forensics I think most cases now are far more accurate than they have ever been.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:No system is 100% fool proof but with modern forensics I think most cases now are far more accurate than they have ever been.

DNA science has literally been a lifesaver for many in this case.

I'm still a supporter of the DP and probably always will be. But the state of Illinois decided to do away with it. That's fine by me.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:No system is 100% fool proof but with modern forensics I think most cases now are far more accurate than they have ever been.

I wonder if this applies to most cases though. There is no question that where employed, modern forensics deliver a much greater degree of certainty that the right person has been apprehended. The potential fly-in-the-ointment lies in the distribution of that modern forensic technology and expertise. Not all municipalities have the latest and greatest in forensic technology and expertise, and in certain cases this translates into a lessening of the degree of certainty that the right person has been brought to justice.

And while I am not instinctively against capital punishment - I shed no tears if a truly deserving person is put to death - I still feel this tiny flicker of "what if?" Does capital punishment actually serve society so well that the potential loss of an innocent life can justified?

I think this is the question states should be asking when considering whether or not to allow capital punishment. Does the value of capital punishment offset the loss of even one innocent victim?

Does the value of capital punishment offset the loss of even one innocent victim?

And the simple answer is - no. Of course it doesn't. Murder of one individual by another is a horrific crime, the murder of an individual by the state is a travesty.

Even if the possibility of error were completely removed I would still be opposed to capital punishment on other grounds.

Agreed. Capital punishment is simply a legitimized, collaborative, and extraordinarily premeditated form of murder.

If the possibility of error were completely removed, I would not be opposed to capital punishment.

Putting a person to death for the commission of a capital crime is seen by a great many, and in most cases by families of the murdered victims, as justice - not premeditated murder.

One of the key functions of any government is the maintenance of civil society and the rule of law. They are granted certain tools with which to effect those objectives.

Under your thinking Kronos, the government's seizure of taxes (ie, the personal property of individuals) whether agreed to or not, would be "a legitimized, collaborative, and extraordinarily premeditated form of plunder."

The imprisonment of free citizens for the commission of crimes would be "a legitimized, collaborative, and extraordinarily premeditated" seizure of liberty.

Whether we like it or not, the government is the only legal entity that is allowed to use force, or even deadly force, to accomplish its objectives.

It's an interesting thought, whether all forms of capital punishment should or could be considered murder. I'd previously only thought so far as to consider the execution of an innocent person murder.

I have lots of issues with CP. First, I don't see how executing someone could ever be considered punishment. Some would say it is the ultimate punishment because you are taking away a person's life, but surely punishment is something which has to be experienced?

CP is, more accurately, removing an undesirable, presumably dangerous person from society. The justification for this is that they are a threat to society and law abiding citizens, they have broken their contract with that society (by seriously breaking its laws), it is unfair to expect law abiding citizens to pay for their extended incarceration.

To the first of these reasons I would say that there are other ways of protecting society from dangerous individuals.
To the second of these reasons I would say that there is an issue of how culpable society is for their behaviour.
To the third of these reasons, I would question whether ethically we have the right to decide the value of a human life - even one who has taken other lives, even multiple lives, especially when the society we live in is - to some extent - responsible for their behaviour.

Information like this:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-race/page.do?id=1101091

Indicates that there are more factors at work than simple personal choice. We know that society helps to shape us. I'm not suggesting that everyone who kills has been failed by society and therefore should not be punished - not by any means. What I'm suggesting is that we do not get to choose whether we follow the laws of a society - we either obey it's laws or we are put in prison or killed. We do not have the ability to opt out. And we are also trapped by birth in a certain place in society - race, wealth, intelligence, opportunity as well as certain traits of character. Without getting too philosophical and seizing the prickly issue of free will - if someone commits a crime, society may be, to some extent, responsible. It is not enough to excuse this by saying 'I don't do that' or 'other people in their situation don't do that', because there is no one else in their position exactly and in some way they have been failed. They are still responsible for their crime, but so is the society they have little choice but to live in.

Putting a person to death for the commission of a capital crime is seen by a great many, and in most cases by families of the murdered victims, as justice - not premeditated murder.

Yes, but thankfully it is not the victims of crime who get to dictate laws or the punishments for criminals - and for very good reason. Law and order, crime and punishment these things take (or should take) more issues into consideration than justice (which is very easy to confuse with revenge). Most important amongst these issues are culpability (not guilt) and rehabilitation.

One of the key functions of any government is the maintenance of civil society and the rule of law. They are granted certain tools with which to effect those objectives.

Yes, but the issue here is which tools they should be entitled to use.

Under your thinking Kronos, the government's seizure of taxes (ie, the personal property of individuals) whether agreed to or not, would be "a legitimized, collaborative, and extraordinarily premeditated form of plunder."

I don't think that follows, Kronos has not indicated that he resents any or all governmental powers, but that he takes issue with one of the tools which they use - which is entirely his prerogative in a democratic society.

Whether we like it or not, the government is the only legal entity that is allowed to use force, or even deadly force, to accomplish its objectives.

I think the key phrase there is 'whether we like it or not'. In a democratic society, you can change the 'or not' part.

The good thing (if one can call it that) is that over here, it's not gov't mandated. If a state wants CP, it can. If not, they don't.