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TechnographIllinois lawmakers urged to issue final decision on future of death row
By Nguyen Huy Vu, The Associated Press
Posted: 6/30/08 Section: News
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - When former Gov. George Ryan took the extraordinary step of emptying Illinois' death row over fears that an innocent person could be executed, he urged lawmakers to reform the death penalty.
Five years later, the future of capital punishment in Illinois is no closer to being decided.
The current governor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, refuses to carry out executions of the 14 people now on death row despite approving several reforms. Lawmakers have ignored legislative attempts to decide the issue. And prosecutors are slower to seek the death penalty.
As the issue languishes, those involved in the debate agree on at least one thing: It's time for lawmakers to lift the moratorium or abolish the death penalty altogether.
"I don't think that the moratorium was meant to be a permanent position," said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, a member of the state's Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee and a victim's rights advocate who favors abolishing the death penalty.
"Vengeance does not fill the gaping hole left behind," said Bishop-Jenkins, whose pregnant sister and brother-in-law were murdered in their Winnetka home in 1990. "It does not provide justice, to kill the offender and suggest that it is going somehow balance out or make OK what happened to her and her husband and her baby."
But she knows some of those she represents feel differently, and says it's time for Illinois to decide one way or the other.
In 2000, Ryan, a Republican, made Illinois the first state with the death penalty to suspend executions, after 13 condemned prisoners were freed for wrongful conviction. Just before leaving office in 2003, Ryan cleared death row entirely, sparing 167 people from execution. Most had their sentences commuted to life in prison, though a handful got outright pardons.
The issue has stalled since then, even as other states have resolved the issue.
In 2004, Blagojevich signed into law capital punishment reforms - including mandatory videotaped confessions in murder cases, restrictions on testimony from jailhouse informants and broader use of DNA analysis - and created a committee to review the reforms annually for five years.
Five years later, the future of capital punishment in Illinois is no closer to being decided.
The current governor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, refuses to carry out executions of the 14 people now on death row despite approving several reforms. Lawmakers have ignored legislative attempts to decide the issue. And prosecutors are slower to seek the death penalty.
As the issue languishes, those involved in the debate agree on at least one thing: It's time for lawmakers to lift the moratorium or abolish the death penalty altogether.
"I don't think that the moratorium was meant to be a permanent position," said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, a member of the state's Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee and a victim's rights advocate who favors abolishing the death penalty.
"Vengeance does not fill the gaping hole left behind," said Bishop-Jenkins, whose pregnant sister and brother-in-law were murdered in their Winnetka home in 1990. "It does not provide justice, to kill the offender and suggest that it is going somehow balance out or make OK what happened to her and her husband and her baby."
But she knows some of those she represents feel differently, and says it's time for Illinois to decide one way or the other.
In 2000, Ryan, a Republican, made Illinois the first state with the death penalty to suspend executions, after 13 condemned prisoners were freed for wrongful conviction. Just before leaving office in 2003, Ryan cleared death row entirely, sparing 167 people from execution. Most had their sentences commuted to life in prison, though a handful got outright pardons.
The issue has stalled since then, even as other states have resolved the issue.
In 2004, Blagojevich signed into law capital punishment reforms - including mandatory videotaped confessions in murder cases, restrictions on testimony from jailhouse informants and broader use of DNA analysis - and created a committee to review the reforms annually for five years.
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