Illinois Abolishes Death Penalty; 16th State to End Executions

In a ceremony behind closed doors today Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill that will make Illinois the 16th state to abolish the death penalty. "I have concluded that our system of imposing the death penalty is inherently flawed," said Quinn in a statement issued after the signing. "Since our experience has shown that there is no way to design a perfect death penalty system, free from the numerous flaws that can lead to wrongful convictions or discriminatory treatment, I have concluded that the proper course of action is to abolish it," he said. It has been 11 years since a death sentence has been carried out in the state. In 2000, then Republican Gov. George Ryan, ordered a moratorium on executions fearing that the Illinois' death penalty system might be at risk of executing the innocent. Ryan had been an ardent supporter of the death penalty, but changed his mind when he saw a rising number of exonerations of death row inmates in Illinois courts. Foes of the death penalty had urged Quinn to sign a law to abolish the executions completely. The issue has been politically delicate for Quinn who has always said that he supports the death penalty, but he's been concerned about how the system works. The state legislature passed the ban in January, and the governor had put off signing it to listen to voices on both sides. Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the families of murder victims encouraged the Governor to keep the most severe penalty on the books. A group of men wrongfully convicted, who were cleared from death row when Ryan issued his moratorium on the death penalty a decade ago, spoke in favor of the ban. "I think we're on the right side of history here," said Rep. Karen Yarbrough, a Democratic sponsor of the bill. "I appreciate the governor taking the time it took to listen to the other voices out there. We all took time to really look at this and we're standing on the shoulders of other legislators who have inched this thing along."

Illilnois Gov. Pat Quinn Abolishes Death Penalty in Closed Ceremony

Fifteen people remain on death row in Illinois, but Quinn announced he would commute those sentences to life without parole. The new law takes effect July 1. "This is a turning point "says Shari Silberstein, executive director of Equal Justice which advocates for the abolishment of the death penalty. "Illinois is significant because it has had a moratorium on executions for 11 years, convened two study commissions and enacted a series of reforms aimed at fixing the system. But still, exonerations continued, the costs went through the roof and victim's family members were left in limbo. Today sends a message that after all of that effort, the ultimate conclusion of Illinois law makers was that it cannot be made to work." A part of the bill provides that the funds that are going to be saved by repealing the death penalty are
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going to be reallocated to services for victim's families and training for law enforcement. "Illinois is the first state to do something positive for victim's families on public safety with the funds that were previously wasted on the death penalty," said Silberstein. Nationwide, death penalty sentences have plunged to their lowest levels in the last few years due to a concern of the risk of executing the innocent, the high costs of capital punishment and fears over the method of lethal injection used in each of the 35 states that allow the death penalty. Texas, which has had the most executions among all the states, has had a dramatic drop from 48 sentences in 2000 to only eight death sentences last year, says Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center which opposes the death penalty. California, the state with the largest death row in the country, has not had an execution for over five years. "Illinois is being watched by the rest of the country because it stopped the death penalty, reviewed it and ultimately chose to abandon it. Other states have been watching Illinois, and are now considering legislation to abolish the death penalty," says Dieter.

Other States Watch Illinois After Death Penalty Abolished

Those states include, Maryland, Montana, Connecticut, Kansas and Florida. "If these abolition votes continue, and a majority of states abolish the death penalty, then the Supreme Court of the United States might find that there is a consensus, or new standard of decency in the country that rejects the death penalty," he said. In recent years the Supreme Court has narrowed the death penalty, abolishing it for juveniles and for the mentally retarded.

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Illinois Abolishes The Death Penalty

by NPR STAFF AND WIRES

March 9, 2011

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Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty Wednesday, more than a decade after the state imposed a moratorium on executions out of concern that innocent people could be put to death by a justice system that had wrongly condemned 13 men. Quinn also commuted the sentences of all 15 inmates remaining on Illinois' death row. They will now serve life in prison.

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Seth Perlman/AP

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn speaks w ith reporters after signing legislation abolishing the death penalty in the state at the capitol in Springfield on Wednesday.

As he signed the bill, Quinn called it the "most difficult decision" he has made as governor. But he said the best step forward for Illinois was to be done with the death penalty altogether. "We all know that our state has had serious problems with respect to the system of the death penalty for many years," he said. State lawmakers voted in January to abandon capital punishment, and Quinn spent two months reflecting on the issue, speaking with prosecutors, victims' families, death penalty opponents and religious leaders. Quinn said he studied every aspect of Illinois' death penalty and concluded that it was impossible to create a perfect system, "one that is free of all mistakes, free of all discrimination with respect to race or economic circumstance or geography." Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said no state has studied the death penalty more than Illinois. "For a Midwest state that actually had one of the larger death rows in the country to come to this point, I think, is even more significant than some of the earlier states which hardly used the death penalty," he said. Illinois' moratorium goes back to 2000, when then-Republican Gov. George Ryan made international headlines by suspending executions. He acted after years of growing doubts about the justices system and after courts threw out the death sentences of 13 condemned men. Shortly before leaving office in 2003, Ryan also cleared death row, commuting the sentences of

167 inmates to life in prison. Illinois' last execution was in 1999. When the new law takes effect on July 1, Illinois will join 15 other states that have done away with the executions. Quinn said he hoped other states would follow. "I think if you abolish the death penalty in Illinois, we should abolish it for everyone," he said. New Mexico had been the most recent state to repeal the death penalty, doing so in 2009, although new Republican Gov. Susana Martinez wants to reinstate it. Quinn consulted with retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and met with Sister Helen Prejean, the inspiration for the movie Dead Man Walking. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan appealed directly to Quinn to veto the bill, as did several county prosecutors and victims' families. They said safeguards, including videotaped interrogations and easier access to DNA evidence, were in place to prevent innocent people from being wrongly executed. Pam Bosley, who helped organize a group for families of children killed by gun violence, tried to talk Quinn out of signing the bill. Her 18-year-old son, Terrell, was shot to death in 2006 as he was coming out of church. "I can't see my son at all no more. I can't see him grow old," she said. "They took all that from me, so I feel that their life needs to be ended." But death penalty opponents argued that there was still no guarantee that an innocent person couldn't be put to death. Quinn's own lieutenant governor, Sheila Simon, a former southern Illinois prosecutor, asked him to abolish capital punishment. Quinn offered words of consolation to those who had lost loved ones and announced that there would be a death penalty abolition trust fund to provide resources to relatives of victims. "You are not alone in your grief," he said. "I think it's important that all of us reach out through this trust fund in helping family members recover." Twelve men have been executed in Illinois since 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated. The last was Andrew Kokoraleis on March 17, 1999. At the time, the average length of stay on death row for the dozen men was 13 years. Kokoraleis, convicted of mutilating and murdering a 21-year-old woman, was put to death by lethal injection. NPR's Cheryl Corley contributed to this report, which contains material from The Associated

Press

9 March 2011 Last updated at 19:33 GMT

Illinois abolishes the death penalty

Illinois has become the 16th US state to abolish the death penalty, after the governor signed a bill making permanent a 10-year-old moratorium on executions. Governor Pat Quinn signed the bill after spending two months consulting with victims' families, prosecutors, religious leaders and others. Former Governor George Ryan ordered a moratorium in 2000 amid concerns innocent people could be executed. Thirty-four states still have the death penalty.

'Right thing'
In the state capital Springfield, Mr Quinn, a Democrat, said he had followed his conscience, the Chicago Tribune reported. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," he told reporters. "I think it's the right, just thing to abolish the death penalty." In a statement accompanying the bill signing, he wrote the Illinois death penalty system was flawed and could lead to wrongful convictions. Mr Quinn also commuted to life in prison the sentences of 15 death row inmates.

Mr Ryan's move in 2000 came after more than a dozen condemned inmates were freed from Illinois death row, some when journalists showed they had been wrongly convicted. His successors, former Governor Rod Blagojevich and Mr Quinn, kept the moratorium in place. The Illinois legislature approved the ban two months ago, and it takes effect on 1 July. The number of annual executions in the US has declined dramatically since the peak of 98 in 1999, to 46 last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since the US Supreme Court allowed capital punishment in 1976 after a brief national moratorium, Texas has executed the most offenders, with 466.

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Illinois Death Penalty Abolished: Pat Quinn Signs Death Penalty Ban, Clears Death Row

CHRISTOPHER WILLS 03/ 9/11 08:17 PM ET Chicago News , Death Penalty Ban , Governor Pat Quinn , Illinois Death Penalty , Kwame Raoul , Pat Quinn , Pat Quinn Death Penalty , Death Penalty Illinois , Illinois Death Penalty Abolished , Illinois Death Penalty Bill Signed , Karen Yarbrough, Illinois Death Penalty Ban ,Quinn Death Penalty , Chicago News 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. ___ Associated Press writers John O'Connor and Zachary Colman in Springfield and Deanna Bellandi, Don Babwin and Karen Hawkins in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Illinois Gov. Quinn signs bill banning death penalty

Wed, Mar 9 2011

By Andrew Stern and Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO (Reuters) - The governor of Illinois signed a law on Wednesday abolishing capital punishment, an issue that has roiled the state since a series of wrongful convictions led to a decade-long moratorium on executions. When the law signed by Democratic Governor Pat Quinn takes effect on July 1, Illinois will become the fourth state in the past two years after New York, New Jersey and New Mexico to dispense with the death penalty. The ultimate punishment will still be an option in 34 states and for federal inmates. Most Western democracies no longer carry out executions. "In Illinois there is no question in my mind that abolishing the death penalty is the right thing," in light of the exonerations, said Ron Safer, an attorney who has defended death penalty cases. "It is naive to think that we haven't executed an innocent person. We stop looking after they're executed." Quinn also commuted the death sentences of all 15 prisoners on the state's Death Row. According to Amnesty International, there were 2,390 people executed in 25 nations in 2008, with China executing more than half, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Pakistan and Iraq. Illinois has not executed anyone since 1999 and former Republican Governor George Ryan gained international acclaim from capital punishment opponents when he halted executions in 2000. Ryan pronounced the state's death penalty system "broken," saying he was appalled by more than a dozen faulty convictions exposed by the Chicago Tribune newspaper and Northwestern University journalism students. The errors were blamed on forced confessions, unreliable witnesses, and incompetent legal representation. Two days before he left office in 2003, Ryan cleared the state's Death Row by commuting to life in prison the sentences of 164 inmates. "No state had tried harder to fix its death penalty system, but after 10 years it became patently clear that it was broken beyond repair," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, in a statement. Cox said this is also true in other death penalty states, including Connecticut, Maryland and Montana, where a death penalty ban is under consideration. "Governor Quinn has shown great human rights leadership by recognizing the wisdom of abolishing an antiquated, ineffective and inhumane punishment." Barack Obama, then a Democratic state senator in Illinois, was among the legislators who engineered subsequent reforms that included videotaping of confessions. Quinn invited both sides to discuss whether he should sign the bill, or modify it. Prosecutors in the state and relatives of murder victims urged him to keep the death penalty for the most heinous crimes, while opponents including Sister Helen Prejean lobbied him to sign the law abolishing the practice. The number of executions in the United States dropped 12 percent last year to 46, and were down from 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The Center said there have been 138 exonerations of Death Row inmates since 1973. (Reporting by Mary Wisniewski and Andrew Stern; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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What killed Illinois' death penalty

It wasn't the question of morality but the question of accuracy that led state to abolish capital punishment
March 10, 2011 | By Steve Mills, Tribune reporter

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If there was one moment when Illinois' death penalty began to die, it was on Feb. 5, 1999, when a man named Anthony Porter walked out of jail a free man. Sitting in the governor's mansion, George Ryan watched Porter's release on television and wondered how a man could come within 50 hours of being executed, only to be set free by the efforts of a journalism professor, his students and a private investigator.
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"And so I turned to my wife, and I said, how the hell does that happen? How does an innocent man sit on death row for 15 years and gets no relief," Ryan recalled last year. "And that piqued my interest, Anthony Porter."

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February 12, 1999

To be sure, by the time Porter was set free, the foundation of Illinois' death penalty system already had begun to erode by the steady stream of inmates who had death sentences or murder convictions vacated: Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez in the Jeanine Nicarico case, the men known as the Ford Heights Four, Gary Gauger. But for decades, the debate over capital punishment rarely strayed from whether it was right or wrong, a moral argument that was waged mostly by a narrow group of attorneys and abolition supporters that could be easily dismissed. Public opinion polls showed little movement. Death sentences and executions hit record levels. Inmates like the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, whose guilt was never in question, were put to death and caused little controversy. But when a miscarriage of justice was discovered and a death row inmate was set free, the police and prosecutors contended that it was an isolated incident, an anomaly. They got little argument. In November 1998, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University hosted 29 exonerated death row inmates at a conference, putting a human face to the death penalty's errors. Then, with Porter's case still in the spotlight, plus a series of stories in the Chicago Tribune later that year that illuminated deep frailties in the state's system of capital punishment, the debate over the death penalty was transformed. Suddenly, it was about accuracy. No longer were the mistakes anecdotal. The problems were systemic. Opposition to the death penalty began to win new supporters, people who looked at the issue pragmatically, not just morally, and were dismayed by the mistakes. Politicians no longer saw the issue as a third rail with voters. Ryan, who declared a halt to all executions in 2000, found it did not cost him politically.

Another Near-miss On Death Row

February 5, 1999

On Death Penalty, Few Preach What They Practice

September 25, 1998

Toward Fairer Capital Punishment

November 5, 1999

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Death Penalty Death Row Capital Punishment

A decade after Ryan declared a moratorium, 61 percent of voters questioned in a poll did not even know the state still had a death penalty, reflecting a stalemate of sorts that had emerged between supporters of abolition and those who wanted to bring back capital punishment. No one was being put to death, yet death row again was receiving inmates, though at a slower pace than before the Ryan moratorium. Had Republican Bill Brady won the November general election instead of Democrat Pat Quinn, the state still would have a death penalty, and the new governor almost certainly would have lifted the moratorium and allowed executions to resume.
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Ultimately, supporters of abolition in the General Assembly frustrated that sufficient reform had not been enacted and stung by the costs of trials and appeals voted to abolish the death penalty. On Wednesday, Quinn signed abolition into law and commuted the sentences of 15 inmates who had been sentenced to death since the moratorium. "That isolated image of Anthony Porter is crucial," said Lawrence Marshall, a former legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions and a key player in the abolition of the death penalty. "But it only makes a difference when it comes amidst all of those other incidents. It shows (the problems weren't) isolated. This was a trend." With Quinn's signature, Illinois became the fourth state to abandon the death penalty over the last decade, and the isolation of the use of capital punishment, mostly in the South, is a national trend, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. The New Jersey Legislature voted to drop the death penalty in 2007. A New York appeals court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 2004. And in 2009, the New Mexico Legislature voted to repeal capital punishment; Gov. Bill Richardson signed the bill into law. Other states have convened panels to study the death penalty and have considered legislation to end it, prompted by the exonerations of condemned inmates; capital punishment's high cost, particularly in a down economy; and the widening support for life in prison without parole as an alternative sentence, Dieter said.
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Editorial: Make Colorado next to end death penalty

By The Denver Post Posted: 03/13/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

John Hickenlooper said, in response to a Denver Post questionnaire, that he thought the death penalty should be "restricted" but opposed its repeal. Yet in Illinois, lawmakers and others know all too well the dangers inherent in carrying out the death penalty. In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after a series of death row inmates were exonerated. Sometimes, an innocent person is condemned to die. Watching prisoners walk free after being cleared of a crime by some scientific development, such as DNA testing, has become almost routine. Last week, Gov. Pat Quinn signed the death penalty ban, while also commuting the sentences of the 15 inmates on death row. They will serve life in prison without parole. Illinois last performed an execution in 1999. Quinn spent two months weighing whether to sign the bill, calling it the "most difficult decision" he's had to make as governor, according to a story on Politico.com. The Denver Post has long opposed the death penalty. We believe that death is an ineffective sentence for a society that should value life. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, in the past, has made the case for the death penalty by saying it's crucial in discouraging future horrific criminal behavior. Yet there is very little evidence that the death penalty discourages

Illinois last week became the 16th state in the union to end capital punishment. Colorado should become the 17th. Unfortunately, there's no effort afoot in Colorado's statehouse to end our unfortunate and long run with the death penalty. In 2009, a bill that would have eliminated the death penalty in Colorado and used expected savings to pay for the investigation of unsolved homicides cleared the House. But its fate hung on uncertainty. Gov. Bill Ritter wouldn't even tell Coloradans where he stood on the bill, or on the death penalty. Eventually, the bill died in the Senate. With Republicans now controlling the House, there's been no talk of resurrecting the issue. A nd when he was running for office last fall, Gov.

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violent crime. He also contends the only deterrent some violent inmates have to murdering a guard or fellow inmate is the threat of the death penalty. That argument is more difficult to bat down. When lawmakers were contemplating capital punishment in 2009, we wondered if some opponents of the bill would support greater limits on the death penalty short of its full abolition. For example, what if the state made exceptions in a death-penalty ban for those who kill witnesses in a court case, which undermines the foundation of our legal system, or those already serving a life sentence who then kill a prison guard? We'd prefer an outright ban on the death penalty, but maybe some type of compromise that severely curtails its already limited use in Colorado would be a good start.

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