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| Illinois Reforms System for Death Penalty |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/24/2003 |
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Nearly four years after the release of several wrongly condemned prisoners led to a moratorium on executions, legislators last Wednesday restructured the state's administration of the death penalty to reduce the risk of executing an innocent person. The state House, in a 115 to 0 vote, approved a series of changes to a system that led to at least 17 wrongful convictions. The vote, an override of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich's veto, makes the measure law immediately because the Senate overrode the veto earlier this month. Among other things, the legislation gives the Illinois Supreme Court greater power to throw out unjust verdicts, gives defendants more access to evidence and bars the death penalty in cases hinging on a single witness. "It will work. The criminal justice system is one that works. It's worked for 200 years in this country," said the bill's sponsor, House Republican leader Tom Cross. Blagojevich said the death-penalty moratorium put in place in 2000 by his Republican predecessor, George Ryan, will remain in effect until he sees how the reforms work. The reform follows years of debate over capital punishment. From 1977, the year the death penalty was reinstated in Illinois, to 2000, 12 people were executed in the state, while 13 inmates on death row were released because they had been wrongly condemned. In January 2000, Ryan suspended executions. Before leaving office this year, he cleared out death row, commuting the sentences of 167 prisoners to life in prison and pardoning four men he said were innocent. |
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