End of Death Penalty in Illinois? If So, a Harbinger of a National Trend?
On Jan. 11, the Illinois Senate passed a repeal measure by a 35-22 vote, five days after the state house approved the measure, 60-54. Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, is weighing whether to sign or veto the bill, with his timetable and ultimate decision uncertain. But death penalty opponents are already allowing themselves to contemplate that a major Midwestern state, not known as light on crime, is about to take a dramatic stand against the death penalty.
Why is movement in this one state watched by death penalty opponents and proponents alike? Well, Illinois may be a bellwether state because of its position near the middle of the cultural/political spectrum. It is a Midwestern state that is neither as socially conservative as many Southern states nor as progressive as many Northeastern states. And, if we view Illinois as a laboratory where experiments on this nationally-divisive issue have been taking place, it’s been a busy one:
For the past decade, most of the arguments in the death penalty debate have played themselves out in Illinois. In 2000, Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions, humbled by the number of death row inmates who were being freed on new evidence of innocence — much of it dug up by students at Northwestern University. Two commissions looked at the capital punishment system, and the legislature enacted reforms. But exonerations continued, and now the legislature has, in effect, thrown up its hands.
The NLJ piece further notes – and this has been discussed elsewhere recently – that it’s no coincidence that a capital-punishment repeal is considered at a time of state budgetary woes. Maintaining a death penalty program is very expensive, in large part because of the costs of the appellate process (which, in the PSLawNet Blog’s opinion is absolutely necessary in capital-punishment jurisdictions since, even with sophisticates appellate processes in place, innocent people are still executed).
Here’s some reaction to the legislature’s votes from the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times. And here’s an editorial from the Peoria Journal Star, which ran before the Senate repeal vote, in favor of the repeal:
In good conscience it is impossible to slough off as no big deal the fact that Illinois came so close to killing 20 innocent people. In fact the state has freed more Death Row inmates than it has actually executed – 12 – since 1977 (which also was true even before the moratorium). That’s not proof the system worked, as some have argued, but that it failed miserably and would have done so fatally but for the efforts of advocates on a mission. Many of these guys may not be saints, but you don’t steal an innocent man’s freedom, family and irretrievable time and say the system “worked.”