The Illinois General Assembly veto session ends today, and legislation to repeal the death penalty, SB 3539, is one of several bills on the legislators' agenda.
NCADP will be live-tweeting from the Illinois Capitol. Audio of the Senate session is being webcast.
Today's Chicago Tribune carries the editorial, "The Senate's turn."
The list is longer, but we'll stop there. When it comes to the death penalty, one mistake is too many — and in Illinois, there have been at least 20 mistakes. That's why we have a moratorium on executions, 10 years and counting. It's why the state Senate must act to end the death penalty for good.
The Illinois House voted last week to do so, a courageous acknowledgement that the system is broken and the moratorium is no solution.
Alarmed that the state had come close to executing innocent men, then-Gov. George Ryan emptied death row in 2003, commuting 167 sentences and pardoning four people. But we're filling the cells again without fixing the problems.
There have been more than 500 capital cases in the last 10 years. There are 15 men on death row, and some of them are running out of appeals. But the moratorium remains in place because the system still can't be trusted.
Arguing last week against a repeal, Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, said the mere threat of the death penalty can help police secure a confession. "Don't take that tool away from law enforcement, ladies and gentlemen," he said.
Two recent cases, though, show that tool can be abused. Jerry Hobbs confessed to killing his 8-year-old daughter and a playmate in a Zion park. Kevin Fox confessed to killing his 3-year-old daughter in Will County. Both said their confessions were coerced, and both were exonerated by DNA evidence. Innocent children murdered at the hands of their own fathers — again, it's the sort of unspeakable crime that cries out for the ultimate punishment. But prosecutors got it wrong.
And:
The moratorium was supposed to give lawmakers time to fix the system, and they tried. But it remains in place because they haven't succeeded, and because they know they can't. The House has faced up to that truth. It's the Senate's turn to do the same.
"Illinois Senate may abolish death penalty Tuesday; Medill Innocence Project influenced state death penalty debate, lawmakers say," by Brian Rosenthal appears in the Daily Northwestern.
The Illinois Senate appears poised to permanently abolish the death penalty in the state, and part of the credit belongs to the work of the Medill Innocence Project, lawmakers said Monday.
The state senate could vote as soon as Tuesday on SB3539, which would replace the state's decade-long moratorium on the death penalty with a permanent ban. Approval would send the bill to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who supports the moratorium but has not said publicly whether he would sign the permanent ban.
The state house voted 60-54 on the second try Thursday to approve its version of the bill.
"I think it's an incredibly important piece of legislation that will have a great impact for a long time," said State Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, who co-sponsored the bill.
Gabel credited the Innocence Project, a Northwestern program that enables journalism students to investigate serious convictions in which there is evidence that the outcome was unjust, with showing legislators that the legal system is flawed and often convicts innocent people.
Medill Prof. David Protess, the director of the Innocence Project, said the house's passage of the bill was "very gratifying" to those who have been wrongfully convicted. The project has discovered evidence that has freed five innocent people from death row.
"Abolition will help the death row exonerees feel that the time they served was not entirely in vain," Protess said. "If there's any purpose to someone being wrongfully convicted and on death row, it's to show that the law is fundamentally flawed, and this is a step to fixing it."
The project is widely credited with causing Republican Gov. George Ryan to issue a moratorium on executions in 2000 while he created a commission to study the issue. Democratic Govs. Rod Blagojevich and Quinn continued the moratorium. Abolition is considered by some to be a natural next step.
But approval of the bill is not a given. Despite signs of optimism, Gabel characterized the debate in the state senate as an "uphill battle," and Protess said it is "not at all clear" if Quinn supports the measure.
And:
Each death penalty case can cost $5 million on pre-trial investigations alone, said Rob Warden, executive director of NU's Center on Wrongful Convictions, which works closely with the Innocence Project.
"It's absolutely obscene," said Warden, adding that the bill would make Illinois the third state to ban the death penalty, behind New Jersey and New Mexico.
Protess acknowledged that the cost issue has spurred the bill toward passage, especially considering the current economic climate. Any cost savings would be distributed to law enforcement programs and crime victims, he said.
The Quad-City Times reports, "Illinois lawmakers face a wild day." It's written by Kurt Erickson.
Lawmakers could be in for a potentially long and wild final day of action Tuesday as Democrats race to push through some high-profile initiatives before new lawmakers are sworn in Wednesday.
On tap for the final day of the lame-duck legislative session are possible tax hike votes, final action on abolishing the death penalty, a proposal to expand gambling and controversial reforms to state worker compensation laws.
Earlier coverage begins with the post, "More Illinois Editorials Urge Repeal."
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