Springfield, IL – 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.
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Quinn also commuted the sentences of all 15 inmates remaining on Illinois’ death row. They will now serve life in prison.
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. He called it the “most difficult decision” he has made as governor.
“I think if you abolish the death penalty in Illinois, we should abolish it for everyone,” the governor 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.
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.
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.
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.
Many more innocent are now going to be killed because of this well meaning but ill advised action.
Congrats Gov Quinn!
The justice system now has become a front stage for lawyers and prosecutors. Who ever puts up a better argument wins. It has nothing to do anymore with the real facts of the case.
Even if there is DNA dosent mean that the killer planned it and he’s just a wild murderer it can be a street fight where 1 ends up death in self defense and yes they have DNA but still proves nothing.
Another thing I wanna see removed is the Victim s family member from the witness stand. Because the victim was nice or a graduate or the only child or whatever u hear from family members on the stand dosent add grounds to a guilty verdict
To #3- “Enlightened Yid”- Nobody has ever stated that the death penalty is a deterrent. However, it serves as a retribution against vicious criminal predators. No matter how much the appeals cost, and no matter how long the stay on death row is, one cannot place a value on a human life, which was violently ended, by a useless, worthless, barbaric deviant. In 1949, one Howard Unrah of Camden, N.J., went on a shooting spree, and within minutes killed 13 people, including several of his Jewish neighbors, whom he hated, as well as several women and children. He should have been executed. However, a panel of psychiatrists ruled that he was insane. Unrah spent the next 61 years of his life in a hospital for the criminally insane. About 10 years ago, he filed a petition to be released. A judge denied his petition, citing the horrible nature of his crimes.
They should make that governor pay for those inmates guarded 24/7