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Thread: Illinois Capital Punishment News

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    Illinois Capital Punishment News

    Moratorium Nears Decade Mark, Democrats Show Little Leadership on Death Penalty

    In two weeks, Illinois will mark the 10-year anniversary of Governor George Ryan's decision to halt executions in the state.

    Ryan's controversial decision to enact a moratorium on the death penalty briefly put Illinois at the forefront of a national debate about capital punishment, with Amnesty International calling Illinois' death penalty system "too flawed to fix". Two years after establishing the moratorium, Ryan made an even more controversial decision:clearing death row and commuting 156 death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.

    Following Ryan's actions, the state legislature added a number of procedural safeguards to capital prosecutions, forcing investigators to disclose their field notes and requiring that police videotape all interrogations in capital cases. Taken together, the reforms dramatically reduced the likelihood that police misconduct would result in innocent people being sent to death row.

    But while the reforms have surely made the system fairer, they don't go far enough for two reasons. First, there is still no way to ensure that an innocent person will not be executed. Second, no matter how safe the system is, the broader underlying question of whether it is permissible for the government to take life remains unaddressed.

    Wrongful convictions remain perhaps the biggest problem with the death penalty, the only criminal sanction that is truly permanent. Indeed, since Illinois resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1976, the state has executed 12 people -- and freed 13 from death row after new evidence exonerated them.

    Part of the reason for wrongful convictions is that there is a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct in capital cases: the most famous death penalty case in Illinois involved the DuPage County state's attorney's prosecuting Rolando Cruz for sexual assault and murder despite knowing about evidence that cleared him.

    Even in the absence of malfeasance, there is still the issue of incompetence. The Cook County state's attorney prosecuted the "Ford Heights Four" in the 1980s for a double murder of a couple even though witnesses pointed to other culprits. DNA evidence would later exonerate the four, and they would collect $36 million in damages following a civil rights lawsuit against the county.

    On a more philosophical level, capital punishment ought to run contrary to our values, particularly in light of evidence that there are widespread problems with the actual administration of taking a human life. The United States is the only industrialized nation that clings to the death penalty, and many developing nations -- like Brazil and India -- have either abolished the practice or use it so infrequently that they have virtually abolished it.

    Within the United States, too, there is a growing trend away from the death penalty. Liberal New England has always seen the practice as barbaric, and New Jersey became the 14th state to ban the practice in 2007, followed by New Mexico last year. This month, the Kansas legislature will begin hearings on whether it should become the next state to change its capital punishment system to life without the possibility of parole.

    So is there a chance Illinois will become the 16th state to abolish the practice, or 17th if Kansas beats us to it? Unlikely.

    Nearly all the Republicans running for governor say they would lift Ryan's moratorium and resume executions. The Democratic candidates, Governor Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes, have taken more progressive positions, though of a decidedly milquetoast variety: both say they would keep the death penalty for heinous crimes, but add that the system needs further reforms and that the moratorium should remain in place. Neither has the guts to call openly for repeal. Oddly enough, the one person who does is State Senator Dan Proft, a conservative Republican.

    Despite the gubernatorial candidates' timidity, the Illinois legislature has provided some progressive leadership on the issue. A coalition of House liberals and a diverse group of Senate Democrats (which includes two downstaters) have sponsored bills indicating their support for abolishing the death penalty. The Senate's genuinely liberal president, John Cullerton, who was instrumental in pushing death penalty reforms through the State Senate in 2003, is also against the death penalty.

    We ought to expect more from the Democrats -- particularly the governor and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan -- who have governed Illinois lock, stock, and barrel for the past seven years. If Kansas is considering ending the death penalty, the Land of Lincoln really ought to be able to do the same. Otherwise, the author (and former Chicagoan) Tom Frank will have the perfect title for his next book: "What's The Matter With Illinois?"

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paras-bhayani/as-moratorium-nears-decad_b_425931.html

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    Quinn favors death penalty moratorium; Brady would lift it.

    Gov. Pat Quinn would maintain Illinois' 10-year moratorium on the death penalty while his Republican opponent, state Sen. Bill Brady, would lift it, the 2 candidates' campaigns said this week.

    Their comments come at the same time as the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty released the results of a poll it commissioned showing that a majority of Illinois registered voters prefer some penalty other than death for the crime of murder.

    The poll also found that fewer than 40 % of registered voters even know Illinois has a death penalty.

    "We really view the results as verifying what we already knew," said Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the coalition. "People assume there is a slight preference (for capital punishment). That’s not reality."

    Quinn’s campaign said the governor has no "immediate plans" to lift the moratorium on executions that was put in place by then-Gov. George Ryan in 2000. Both ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Quinn have maintained it.

    "Although he supports capital punishment when applied carefully and fairly, he is deeply concerned by the possibility of an innocent man or woman being executed," campaign spokeswoman Mica Matsoff said in a statement. "He believes the current moratorium gives the state an opportunity to reflect on the issue and create safeguards to make sure that the death penalty is not being imposed improperly in Illinois."

    Brady: Lift moratorium

    Brady would lift the moratorium, campaign spokeswoman Patty Schuh said in a statement.

    "Bill Brady views the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for the most heinous crimes," she said.

    As does Quinn. Although he would not lift the moratorium, Quinn "believes that the death penalty may be an appropriate punishment for particularly heinous crimes, such as murder or terrorism," Matsoff said. "He believes the death penalty underscores our shared belief as a society that some crimes deserve the most severe punishment, when meted out fairly and justly."

    Brady's campaign also said the state should continue funding the capital litigation trust fund, which supports both prosecutors and defense counsel in death penalty cases.

    "We need to ensure adequate representation," the statement said.

    Quinn's campaign did not respond to a question about the fund.

    Schroeder said the fund has spent more than $100 million since 2003.

    “"llinois is ready to repeal the death penalty and use the money for things that make sense when we have other sentencing options," he said.

    'Dig a little deeper'

    The coalition poll was conducted April 15-19 by Lake Research Partners in Washington, D.C. The telephone survey of 400 registered voters has a margin of error of 4.9 %.

    The pollsters read people 3 statements about the death penalty and asked them to choose the one that best reflected their view:

    -- The penalty for murder should be death;

    -- The penalty for murder should be life in prison with no possibility of parole; and

    -- The penalty for murder should be life in prison with no possibility of parole and a requirement to work to make restitution to the victim’s family.

    The poll found 32 % felt the penalty for murder should be death. Another 18 % said the penalty should be life without parole, while 43 % chose the option of life without parole, but with restitution.

    Schroeder said the result demonstrates that support for the death penalty erodes when other options are given rather than a "yes" or "no" to capital punishment.

    "When you make it into a more realistic question and dig a little deeper, you find that (support) isn't the case," he said.

    Loaded question?

    DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett, who supports the death penalty for a narrow class of murders, said he doubts the poll results.

    "The question is loaded," Birkett said. "I would say that most people believe that the death penalty should be on the books, but reserved for the worst type of murders."

    Birkett said capital punishment should be reserved for things like killing police officers, multiple murders, murders in the act of treason and murder for hire.

    "It's a fraction of a percent who should be exposed (to the death penalty)," he said.

    The coalition poll also asked if people knew whether or not Illinois has a death penalty. Only 39 % said "yes," while 33 % said "no" and 28 % weren't sure.

    Schroeder attributed that to a declining murder rate and fewer people being sentenced to death, with the publicity surrounding it.

    Birkett, though, said it's more likely because people don't understand the moratorium. They may believe the state has no death penalty because of the moratorium, when in fact Illinois law still provides for the death penalty, but the state does not carry it out.

    On death row

    Former Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois in January 2000. Just before leaving office, he commuted the sentences of all inmates then on Illinois' death row to life in prison.

    This is the inmate population on death row in Illinois:

    January 2000 — 158

    July 2010 — 15

    Illinois' last execution

    Before imposing a moratorium on executions in January 2000, Gov. George Ryan decided 1 death penalty case. In 1999, he turned down the appeal of Andrew Kokoraleis, who had been convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of a woman in Elmhurst.

    On March 16, 1999, Kokoraleis, 35, was executed by lethal injection at Tamms Correctional Center for the 1982 ritual mutilation and strangulation of Lorraine Borowski, a 21-year-old secretary at a real estate office who had been abducted on her way to work.

    His brother, Thomas Kokoraleis, also was convicted of the murder. He received a life sentence.

    "This was like a Manson-type cult," Andrew Kokoraleis' defense attorney, Alan Freedman, argued at the time. "But in this particular case, there’s a high likelihood my client didn't do it. I'm not going to vouch for anything else."

    The defense also unsuccessfully claimed that new information cast doubt on the credibility of confessions by 2 other co-defendants. Kokoraleis was the 1st (and so far the only) prisoner executed at Tamms, the super-maximum-security prison in southern Illinois.

    Between the time capital punishment was reinstated in 1977 and Ryan’s moratorium in 2000, Illinois freed 13 men from death row and put 12 to death.

    That record prompted Ryan to suspend executions and order a commission to study the issue.

    He said he had agonized over the Kokoraleis case and ultimately decided there was no doubt about his guilt.

    "It was an emotional, exhausting experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone," Ryan said at the time.

    [source: Newspaper and Internet archives]

    Green Party

    Green Party governor candidate Rich Whitney, a Carbondale lawyer, said he opposes the death penalty for several reasons.

    "Human institutions being fallible, as they are, I don't believe that our criminal justice system should be empowered to take a human life under any circumstances," Whitney said. "I think it's immoral, (and) I think it does not actually tend to successfully deter others from violent crimes."

    Whitney said Illinois has "a whole history" of wrongful convictions in capital cases. Even though efforts have been made to "level the playing field a little bit," he thinks the prosecution still has an institutional advantage.

    "There's other factors like race discrimination," Whitney said. "You have the fact that people can be encouraged to testify against an alleged assailant when they themselves cut deals."

    Even in clear-cut cases, Whitney said, "I still don't think, on just a moral and philosophical ground, that it's right for the state to be taking another human life. I think it tends to reinforce additional violence, rather than deter it."

    (source: Suburban Life Publications)

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    Most Illinoisans Favor Death Penalty, Same-Sex Marriage



    A majority of Illinois voters believe the moratorium on enforcing the state’s death penalty should be lifted, nearly 73 percent of them believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military and two-thirds favor legal marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples, all according to a poll released over the weekend. The poll of 1,000 registered voters was taken Sept. 30 to Oct. 10, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, a release from the by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
    The survey found 56.4 percent who said the death penalty should be reinstated while 36.3 percent said it should remain suspended. There were 7.3 percent who had no opinion.
    The halt to executions was imposed by then-Gov. George Ryan in 2006 after questions were raised about evidence used in death penalty convictions.
    Governors Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn have kept the moratorium in place.
    That could change next year if Republican state Sen. Bill Brady defeats Quinn in the race for governor. Brady has said he would lift the moratorium.
    The survey also found differences of opinion in other controversial social issues facing Illinois.
    • There were 31.5 percent who said abortions should be legal in all circumstances, 19.1 percent who said they should be illegal in all circumstances and 45 percent who said they should be legal only in certain situations. There were 4.4 percent who said they didn’t know.
    • There is wide support for extending some form of legal recognition to the relationships between gay and lesbian couples, the release said. Two-thirds favor legal marriage or civil unions. Specifically, there are 33.6 percent who said gays and lesbians should be allowed to legally marry, 33.9 percent who favor civil unions and 26.5 percent who say there should be no legal recognition of the relationships between gay and lesbian couples. There were 6 percent who didn’t know.
    • There is also wide support for allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. 72.6 percent supported allowing them to openly serve. Only 19.3 percent were opposed and 8.1 percent didn’t know.
    • Registered voters were evenly divided over questions of expanded gambling in the state. Some policy-makers are promoting that idea as a way to help balance the state’s budget. There are 49.9 percent who support more gambling and 46.3 percent who oppose it. There are 3.8 percent who don’t know.
    Telephone interviews were conducted by Issues & Answers Global Media Research of Virginia Beach, Virginia. It reports no Illinois political clients and was paid with non-tax dollars from the Institute’s endowment, the release said.



    http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/10/...-sex-marriage/

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    Anti-death-penalty advocates gearing for new push in Illinois next week

    An anti-death-penalty group says it will use the Illinois Legislature's lame-duck veto session next week to try and pass legislation officially abolishing the death penalty here, 10 years after the state unofficially stopped executing people.

    The Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will unveil its latest campaign on Tuesday, as lawmakers return to Springfield, the group said today.

    Among the group's arguments in this budget-crunch era is that Illinois is still spending millions of dollars a year for the extra safeguards necessary in death-penalty trials, even though there are no actual executions on the horizon because of the state's on-going moratorium.

    ``It's like have a taxi in your garage with the meter running,'' said Jeremy Schroeder, the group's executive director.

    State Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, a pro-death-penalty advocate who has led the effort to reform the system with eye toward resuming executions, said today he is willing to hear the group's arguments -- but not during the veto session, which is a brief meeting of a few days during November before the next full session starts in January.

    ``I want to have a statewide discussion,'' said Haine. He slammed the idea of attempting to make such a major change in Illinois law ``in the dead of night, right before Thanksgiving.''

    Illinois' death penalty moratorium was imposed in 2000 by then-Gov. George Ryan, in response to the revelation that 13 people had been wrongfully sent to the state's death row. The ``moratorium'' wasn't a change in the law, but simply meant that Ryan would longer sign off on executions.

    The two governors since Ryan (Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn) have followed suit, leaving the moratorium in place and effectively halting all executions for a decade, pending reviews of the system.

    Those reviews have been on-going for years, with no end-date in sight, giving the state's political leaders the best of both worlds: They can continue to take a law-and-order stance in favor of the death penalty in concept, while not actually presiding over any executions, with all their attendant controversy.

    http://www.stltoday.com/article_9bba...7a4a78c22.html

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    Victim of murdered family member says death penalty should not be abolished in Illinois

    Rachel Sloop White knows exactly what she would say to the anti-death penalty backers who are lobbying in Springfield.

    White's sister was murdered by a man who now sits on Death Row in Illinois.

    "That," she says of efforts to abolish the death penalty, "is crazy."

    Opponents of the death penalty say now is the time to end it in Illinois. But there is plenty of opposition, and nobody knows for sure if the decade-old moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois will continue, be removed or the most severe form of punishment in the criminal justice system will be ended.

    Saying it is "the right move at the right time for the right reasons," Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, announced a big push last week in Springfield. The state, he says, has paid $100 million in the past seven years alone on prosecution and defense fees.

    The money, Schroeder says, should go to supporting law enforcement training and to help families of murder victims.

    Don't try telling that to White. Her sister, 12-year-old Lonna, was murdered by Daniel Ramsey of Keokuk, Iowa, in 1996 near Burnside. Ramsey had not one but two murder trials, and was sentenced to death for shooting Lonna Sloop and Laura Marson of Basco to death after both trials (the first was overturned on a technicality). He is one of 15 people on Death Row in Illinois.

    Illinois has a moratorium on the death penalty, so Ramsey will sit on death row for the rest of his life unless the moratorium is lifted.

    "There are different circumstances, but in mine, it did happen. They know he (Ramsey) did it, he knows he did it. He deserves to die," says White, who survived being shot in the head on that horrible day in July 1996. "It's not fair to my sister. She didn't even get to have kids, to go to prom and to graduate from high school, to make a living.

    "It's not fair. I would definitely tell them that."

    Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions on Jan. 31, 2000, and formed a commission to investigate the capital punishment in Illinois. Three years later, Ryan announced that he was commuting the sentences of 167 death row prisoners due to "the demon of error" in the capital punishment system.

    Authorities say the second Ramsey trial cost more than $1 million. Most of it was paid through the Capital Litigation Fund.

    Hancock County State's Attorney Jim Drozdz helped prosecute Ramsey during his second trial in the summer of 2007. The Illinois Supreme Court recently rejected Ramsey's appeal of the conviction and death penalty sentence.

    "I believe there are certain cases that cry out for the imposition of the death penalty, and Daniel Ramsey is a poster child for the death penalty," Drozdz said. "It's a powerful tool and it certainly provides the prosecutor with lots of options. It's not one to be used without a lot of careful deliberation. But given the right case, and Ramsey was the right case, there should be in certain situations the most serious form of punishment."

    Adams County State's Attorney Jon Barnard agrees. He has yet to have a case where the death penalty was formally sought, though he did prosecute the murder cases of Billy Jack Reed and Steven Justice nearly a decade ago as an assistant state's attorney when the death penalty was pursued. It was dropped when the two men later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the slayings of a rural Fowler couple.

    "I would only ask for the death penalty if the facts and law warrant it," Barnard said. "Those are fortunately incredibly rare moments."

    http://www.whig.com/story/news/Death-Penalty-112210

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    Death Penalty Abolition Passes Out Of House Committee


    A panel of lawmakers narrowly approved legislation Tuesday to abolish the death penalty in Illinois.

    Over the opposition of Republican members and local prosecutors, the House Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 in favor of ending capital punishment as a sentencing option.

    "It's time to end state-sponsored homicide in Illinois," said state Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Chicago, who is sponsoring the measure.

    The state hasn't executed people since former Gov. George Ryan halted executions in 2000. Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Gov. Pat Quinn have continued the unofficial moratorium on executions.

    Opponents said the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime and admonished supporters for trying to move the legislation during the short two-week veto session.

    Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons said supporters are "rushing to judgment" on an issue that needs more study.

    Supporters say the measure could be voted on by the full House as early as Tuesday afternoon. It remained unclear following the committee hearing whether there is enough support for the proposal to move to the Senate for further action.

    Ryan stopped executions after it was discovered that 13 people had been wrongfully sent to death row. Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said the time that has passed in the interim shows its time to make the moratorium permanent.

    "Ten years of limbo is long enough," Schroeder said.

    Former death row inmate Randy Steidl, who was released from death row in 2004 after serving 12 years for two murders he did not commit, said giving violent criminals life without the chance of being released is more of a punishment.

    "If the State of Illinois had their way, I would be dead today," Steidl said.

    http://www.pantagraph.com/news/state...cc4c002e0.html

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    Death penalty ban on hold; Bruscato testifies against it

    A bill that would have abolished the death penalty in Illinois may have died today.

    A seven-member House Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 3539, voting along party lines. Four Democrats on the committee voted for the bill. Three Republicans opposed it. However, the full House didn’t take a vote on the measure.

    Outside the Capitol and throughout the state, the debate over capital punishment rages on. At the core of the matter are several questions: Is every individual sentenced to death guilty? Is a capital punishment trial fair to all? Is it cost-effective and is it really a deterrent?

    Rob Warden, a death penalty abolitionist and executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, said today that contrary to popular belief, it is “vastly cheaper” to keep an individual alive than it is to execute.

    “The cost of a capital trial is about twice that of a non-capital murder trial,” he said. “That’s because capital cases actually require two trials — the first to determine guilt, the second to weigh mitigating and aggravating factors and determine whether death is the appropriate sentence.”

    Winnebago County State’s Attorney Joe Bruscato appeared this morning before the House committee in Springfield and testified in opposition to Senate Bill 3539.

    He shared the comments he made to the committee this evening.

    “I have two issues with it,” he said. “The first issue I have is trying to pass this legislation during the veto session. It is inappropriate to the victims and to their families. Legislation of this magnitude deserves full consideration. The veto session is just to expedite.

    “The second issue I have with it is the death penalty should remain as a potential punishment because I do believe there are cases where it is appropriate.”

    Commuted every sentence
    Since 1977, the year Illinois reinstituted the death penalty, 311 individuals have been sentenced to death and 20 have been exonerated and released.

    “We have an error rate of 6 percent in the determination of guilt,” Warden said.

    “The court has found that not only shouldn’t they have been sentenced, they shouldn’t have been convicted.”

    In 2000, former Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions.

    On Jan. 11, 2003, two days before leaving office, Ryan commuted every death sentence in the state to life sentences. Later that year, the Legislature passed significant reforms, but the moratorium remains in place.

    Warden said the cost study for a capital punishment sentence in Illinois from conviction to execution has not been calculated. However, he cited a Maryland study that showed executions in that state cost in excess of $35 million for each person executed.

    Bruscato said, “I think it’s wholly inappropriate to try to put a price tag on justice.”

    Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez issued a four-page release in response to Warden’s comments. She said, “The heightened cost of the death penalty is misleading. ... While it is true that death penalty cases often take longer to bring to trial than non-death penalty cases, any increase in cost to the criminal justice system is marginal.”

    Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, who opposes the bill, did not anticipate the proposed law making it out of the House, let alone to the Senate floor.

    “We’ve passed two or three major reforms to the death penalty that have addressed wrongful convictions,” he said. “In these most heinous cases, we need to have this tool for prosecutors.”

    http://www.rrstar.com/news/x13166927...ies-against-it

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    Illinois death-penalty abolition push stalls

    An effort to abolish the death penalty in Illinois won't go forward in the final hours of this year's legislative session, supporters are saying, because they don't yet have the 60 votes they need to get it by the House. They will try again in the first week of January.

    ``We're in the high 50s,'' Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told me a little while ago. He said there was ``not enough oxygen'' around this week to push it through the system, meaning too much other high-profile stuff was going on. (Civil unions, gambling expansion, pension reform, to name a few.)

    The current lame duck session will reconvene in the first week of January, giving the abolition proponents a narrow window before the Jan. 12 swearing-in of the new class of lawmakers. It will still be a Democratic majority after that, but a narrower one, and none of them will be on their way out of office.

    Illinois has had a moratorium on executions since 2000, when it was discovered the state had 13 innocent men on death row. Death sentences have continued being handed down, but the state has indefinitely stopped all executions, pending on-going review of the system.

    Death penalty opponents this month have launched a major push to take the death penalty off the state's books completely, arguing that the special legal reviews and safeguards necessary for death-penalty cases are costing the cash-strapped state millions of dollars, for what has become a merely hypothetical sentence. (Here's our earlier story on the new lobbying effort.)

    The movement to get the abolition vote through the system during the lame duck session has, itself, been controversial, with pro-death-penalty supporters accusing them of trying to ram it through the system with the support of outgoing lawmakers.

    The bill is SB3539.

    http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/g...7a4a78c22.html

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    Lawmakers could take a last look at the Illinois death penalty

    More than 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan halted the death penalty in Illinois for the time being, state lawmakers are preparing to debate whether capital punishment in the state should be abolished for good.

    The controversial vote could come as early as next week. And because it’s such a politically tricky issue, it likely won’t be an easy one for death penalty abolitionists to win.


    Supporters of abolishing capital punishment argue that it’s not a deterrent to crime. And, they say, innocent people in Illinois have been sentenced to death — the ultimate mistake the justice system can make.

    On the other side, supporters of the death penalty argue it can deter crime, the most terrible crimes deserve the ultimate punishment, and reforms have helped prevent mistakes in prosecutions.

    Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Association to Abolish the Death Penalty, said his group is talking to lawmakers about the issue in anticipation of a January vote. But, he said, many lawmakers have already made up their minds one way or another on the issue that’s been around for years.

    “We’ve been waiting for 10 years,” he said.

    A decade ago, Ryan put a hold on all pending executions in Illinois, citing in part the mistaken prosecution of Rolando Cruz in the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.

    Then, before he left office, Ryan changed all Illinois inmates’ death sentences to life in prison.

    Since then, people have been sentenced to death in Illinois, but no one has been executed. If the legislation is approved, those existing death sentences would be changed to life without parole.

    That would include the sentence for Anthony Mertz, who in 2003 was sentenced to death for the 2001 rape and murder of Rolling Meadows native Shannon McNamara. McNamara was a student at Eastern Illinois University.

    Schroeder says lawmakers haven’t seen the death penalty issue as a pressing one in recent years because Ryan’s moratorium has been in place.

    And Schroeder worries that lawmakers’ focus might yet again be distracted from the issue in early January as they also potentially debate controversial taxes and budget legislation, as well as a massive gambling expansion package.

    But some opponents of abolishing the death penalty could be focused.

    State Rep. Dennis Reboletti, an Elmhurst Republican, said some of the worst murder cases still call for capital punishment.

    “You have some heinous crimes that I believe deserve the ultimate penalty,” said Reboletti, who is a former Will County prosecutor and is licensed to try death penalty cases.

    Reboletti said the extensive training he went through to become qualified to try capital cases is evidence of reforms that have improved the death penalty prosecutions.

    “I’m part of the reforms,” he said.

    A first vote on abolishing the death penalty could come in the state House as early as next week. If it’s approved by the House and Senate, Gov. Pat Quinn would have the final say.

    During this year’s campaign, Quinn expressed support for using the death penalty in the most extreme cases.


    Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...#ixzz19cNvmSjW

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    State’s attorneys seek input

    The state’s attorneys in Tazewell and Peoria counties are concerned that political maneuvering will abolish the state’s death penalty law without public input.

    Tazewell County State’s Attorney Stewart Umholtz and Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons are asking residents in their counties to call local legislators and “tell them to not support this politically motivated effort to circumvent the will of the people.”

    “As State’s Attorneys, we have a special duty to seek justice,” the letter stated. “Regardless of personal feelings about whether or not the death penalty is good or bad, the political efforts currently being used to abolish the state’s ultimate punishment are, without question, offensive to justice.

    “This is a last second effort to cram an extremely sensitive issue through a tiny political hole without public input.”

    Former Governor George Ryan, who himself is in prison for crimes committed while in office, declared a moratorium on executions in 2000 after 13 death row inmates were exonerated. Six other death row inmates have had their convictions overturned since 2000.

    The death penalty bill will be one of the final votes 91st District Rep. Mike Smith, D-Canton, will cast in his 16-year career in the General Assembly. He said he knows how he will vote.

    “This has been a recently introduced issue, but I don’t know that there has been a rush to do it,” said Smith. “I don’t know that the outcome would change that much with a new General Assembly.

    “If it comes up for a vote, I’m not very supportive of the bill. I think we need the death penalty in serious cases. The state passed significant reforms several years ago. I say we have reformed the system, and let the system work.”

    Smith said Gov. Pat Quinn signed an executive order after taking office that continues the stay in all executions in the state. Smith said he does not see a lift in the moratorium anytime soon.

    Proponents of the abolition of the death penalty, said Smith, claim that the removal of capital punishment would save the state money.

    “Proponents say that death row cases take so much money because of the lengthy appeals process,” said Smith.

    Umholtz and Lyons said that proponents claim that natural life without parole is an adequate punishment, “Yet they work to pass legislation allowing compassionate release parole to inmates, including murderers, even those given life sentences. Proponents falsely claim substantial savings will occur in abolishing the death penalty by reducing the cost for appeals, apparently believing that criminals facing a life behind bars won’t challenge their convictions.”

    Ninety-first District Representative-elect Mike Unes, who will be sworn in on Jan. 12, said that many prominent prosecutors across the state, both Republicans and Democrats, have come out against the bill. He said the death penalty should “never be taken lightly.”

    “Many of those prosecutors feel the death penalty is a necessary tool to punish the most heinous crimes,” said Unes. “I agree that prosecutors should have that tool. I have faith in the judicial system and the prosecutors.”

    http://www.pekintimes.com/news/x2135...eys-seek-input

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