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MK
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Postby MK » Mon May 23, 2005 5:39 pm

And a transcript of former Gov. George Ryan's speech regarding the death penalty:

this is VERY long, so I'm editing it. The whole thing is here:
http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=28

RYAN: I was raised as a Methodist in a small town south of here, Kankakee, Illinois. My family was not the kind to wear religion on their sleeves. It was difficult because most drug stores open early on Sundays. But we did go to church when we could. But what I said in that interview is that I have prayed over this issue. In the end, all of us who believe, who have faith, are taught certain precepts from the time we are young. We are taught what's right and what's wrong, whether Christian, Muslim or Jew. We are also taught about eternal life and celebration hereafter.

One of the most fundamental of those religious beliefs is to protect the innocent. As God told Moses in the book of Exodus, it is up to us to show justice and mercy: "Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty." We weren't doing a very good job of protecting the innocent in Illinois, until two years ago when I declared what is, in effect, a moratorium on executions. Up until then I had resisted calls to issue such an order. I had always supported the death penalty. I always thought only the guilty were punished and sent to death row for committing the most unspeakable crimes.

I'm from Kankakee, Illinois. We always prided ourselves on trying to keep our small town feel. Kankakee was not immune to crime, but there was always a sense of community outrage. We always wanted to see the bad guy behind bars. Catch, them convict them, throw away the key. That was the sentiment I heard growing up in Kankakee, working in my father's pharmacy. Why wouldn't I?

You've heard me recall how I voted in the General Assembly to put the death penalty back on the books in Illinois. I believed the ultimate punishment played a role in our society for crimes so horrendous that death was the only penalty that fit the crime. In 1976, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was constitutional, I voted as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, to put the death penalty back on the books. During the floor debate on the capital punishment bill, an opponent of the death penalty said to those of us supporting the bill, "How many of you would like to throw the switch." That was a sobering thought. I would never want to be the executioner, to "throw the switch." I'd never want to be responsible for that.

But as a legislator, I was far removed from making that kind of life or death decision. By reinstating the death penalty, my colleagues and I in the General Assembly were tough on crime. It was up to prosecutors, judges and juries to determine who was guilty of a capital offense. I never questioned the system.

But in looking back, it is clear that I only dealt with the issue in the abstract. In those days, my opinion was just that, my opinion. I had no say on how the capital punishment system would be administered and applied. I'm a pharmacist, not a judge or a lawyer. I had no idea that more than twenty-five years later, I would have the good fortune to be elected Governor. And then, I would, in effect, be the one to throw the switch. In most of the thirty-seven states that have the death penalty, the Governor makes the final decision about whether to grant a stay of execution. That is an awesome responsibility, the most difficult faced by a governor. Should they live, should they die? Imagine having that decision on your shoulders. I must admit, I didn't realize the enormity of it until I was faced with it. It has been a long, sometimes strange trip for me on the death penalty. I went from being the lawmaker from Kankakee who voted to reinstate the death penalty, to the governor who declared the country's only moratorium.

We reinstated the death penalty in 1977 in Illinois and since that time we have executed twelve death row inmates. But, thirteen times, innocent men were convicted of capital crimes by judges and juries based on evidence they thought was beyond a reasonable doubt. On thirteen occasions, innocent men were condemned to die. And on thirteen times, innocent men were exonerated after rotting for years on death row. For that to happen even once is unjust. For that to happen thirteen times is shameful and beyond belief.

The first nine exonerations took place over several years, going back to 1987. In my first eleven months in office, four men were freed from Death Row after being cleared by the courts. That included Anthony Porter, a man with an IQ of less than sixty who spent over fifteen years on Death Row for a crime he did not commit—sixteen years on Death Row, all the time knowing he was innocent, while the state was trying to kill him and the real killer was free. That must be like hell on earth. And if not for the students at Northwestern University—journalism students!-- who found the real killer, Mr. Porter would be dead. Killed by the state! He had ordered his last meal and been fitted for his burial suit.

When the thirteenth inmate was exonerated, I did the only thing I could do, the only thing any governor could do—I halted executions. That was the easy part, the hard part was to find out what had gone so terribly wrong. The hard part was to try to answer how our system of justice became so fraught with error, especially when it came to imposing the ultimate, irreversible penalty.

So I appointed some of the smartest, most dedicated citizens I could find to a commission to study what had gone so terribly awry. It was chaired by former Federal Judge Frank McGarr and co-chaired by former Senator Paul Simon and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Thomas Sullivan. They led a panel which included former prosecutors, some defense lawyers, and non-lawyers. Harvard graduate and famed author Scott Turow served on the panel, he's better known here for writing One L, his account of his first year at Harvard Law School, which hundreds of thousands of law students have read for solace. The backgrounds of my commission members were different but they shared one thing in common: a passion and commitment for justice. I thank them for their service.

They put together a tremendous document. The report itself is 207 pages and there are hundreds more pages containing technical analysis, including a study on race and sentencing. I have said before that the more I learn about the justice system, the more troubled I become. As I read this report, I am both impressed that these dedicated and brilliant citizens developed eighty-five recommendations to improve the caliber of justice in our state system.

I have taken that entire report and everything that requires legislation has now been introduced to the Illinois General Assembly. My bill proposes barring the execution of the mentally retarded; mandating that natural life is given as a sentencing option to juries; reducing death penalty eligibility factors from twenty to five; and barring the death penalty when a conviction is based solely on a jailhouse "snitch." It is imperative that we move forward on all of the commission's recommendations to fix our broken justice system. I hope the General Assembly will take the summer to hold hearings and meetings with all of the key parties – the prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims, and the wrongfully convicted.

But I am also deeply concerned. My commission's report seems to confirm my worst fears about our capital punishment system, that it was fraught with error at every painful step of the process. The report reviews, at some level, every capital case that we have ever had in Illinois, but it took a closer look at the 13 inmates freed from Death Row and exonerated. Most did not have solid evidence.

A perfect example is the case of a remarkable man, Gary Gauger. Gary was from McHenry County. He was convicted and sentenced to die for brutally killing his parents. There was no physical evidence and prosecutors presented no motive. The primary evidence against Mr. Gauger were statements he allegedly made to police; my commission reported that those statements were never put in writing. Mr. Gauger denied the statements. But prosecutors won the conviction anyway and sent him to death row. Case closed. Until a few years later when federal authorities investigating a Wisconsin motorcycle gang –a totally unrelated case--caught gang members on tape confessing to the brutal crime. Gary Gauger sat on death row for nearly three years. Not only was he grieving the brutal murder of his parents. He had to grieve for himself as well, for being accused of taking his parents life. His freedom and his dignity stripped from him, he was caught in a nightmare that is too painful to imagine. He never gave up hope though. And he was innocent.

My commission says several cases involved prosecutors relying on the testimony of a witness with something to gain, like a jailhouse informant or an accomplice. Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were two of the so-called Ford Heights Four, a south suburb in Cook County. The primary testimony against them came from a seventeen-year-old girl, with an IQ of less than sixty who police said was an accomplice in the murder of a couple. Seventeen years later, Jimerson, Williams and two others serving lesser sentences were released after new DNA tests revealed that none of them were linked to the crime. Later that year, two other men confessed to the crime and were prison. Seventeen years! Seventeen years! Can you imagine serving even one day on Death Row for a crime you did not commit?

We had one inmate, Steven Smith, convicted and sentenced to die based solely on the testimony of one drug-addicted witness. The case of Anthony Porter that I mentioned earlier also highlights the unreliability of some eyewitness testimony. Two eyewitnesses said they saw Porter kill a couple in a South Side Chicago park. Sixteen years later, journalism students working with a private investigator found those witnesses who recanted their testimony; then the students tracked down the real killer.

At least one case involved a false confession. Ronald Jones confessed to police to a rape and murder. He later said that confession was coerced and years later, DNA cleared him.

There are ten more death row cases still on appeal, known as the Burge 10, for the police detective commander who handled their investigations, all of which involve allegations of police abuse and excessive force. We still don't know how those cases will end up, but they raise serious questions.

The commission Co-Chair Thomas Sullivan very eloquently discussed the report's findings. He said, "In medical terms, our report calls for triage, an attempt to stanch the extraordinary rate of errors, reversals and mistaken convictions in capital cases." And he was right. If you look at the reversal rate in capital cases in Illinois, it exceeds fifty percent. In fact, the chance of executing the wrong person in Illinois was like the flip of a coin. That's not justice.

When we released the report, Thomas Sullivan noted that in the Ford Heights 4 case, the police were given the names of the four actual killers and rapists within a few days after the event, but failed to follow up. Meanwhile the four defendants served over seventy years in jail. Sullivan said, and I agree wholeheartedly, "A system that is so fragile, that a journalism student has to do the police work, is obviously badly flawed." Where in the Illinois criminal code does it say that journalism students are part of the system to ensure that only the guilty are convicted and executed!

Perhaps in the most scathing indictment of our system, Sullivan noted the following: "The police, who conducted the investigations in these cases, remain on the force. The prosecutors who overstepped the bounds of fairness, and the defense lawyers, who gave incompetent defense, remain in practice. The judges, who permitted or caused the errors, remain on the bench."

Now when I was a pharmacist, I know I couldn't have stayed in business, if I only got it right fifty percent of the time. There is virtually no other profession where that level of mistake would be tolerated. Yet that is the situation that we have with the police, prosecutors, defense lawyers and the courts in capital cases in Illinois.

And these capital cases are just a small percentage of all of the criminal cases handled by the courts. What is happening in the rest of the system? If we have this level of error in cases where the ultimate penalty is at stake, what is happening with lesser crimes? I am concerned about that too, for the sake of the innocent. Tom Sullivan said the message from the commission and of this report is clear: "repair or repeal, fix the capital punishment system or abolish it. There is no other principled course."

By the way, as I mentioned earlier, Thomas Sullivan is the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He was a tough prosecutor, now in private practice. Some of the critics not happy with this report have criticized the commission as being stacked with death penalty opponents. I would point out that nine of the fourteen members are current or former prosecutors. When I appointed them, those opposed to capital punishment accused me of stacking the commission with death penalty supporters! This commission is made up of some of the most conscientious, dedicated people ever to enter public service. I am proud of the work they've done.

Before the report was officially released, it was being criticized. I cannot understand that. Why would you prefer the status quo? My commission concluded our twenty factors were too many and ought to be reduced to five. Some critics pointed out that it is an election year and therefore a bad time to suggest reducing the number of eligibility factors for the death penalty. I am well aware that it's an election year, but matters of life and death and justice and fairness are more important than getting elected. Political leaders have an obligation to study this report before they jump to conclusions.

Current and former prosecutors have found fault with the report. Some have predicted that Illinois would become the new murder-for-hire capital of the world because participating in a murder-for-hire plot would no longer make one eligible for the death penalty. That's ridiculous. This factor was eliminated in large part because these sentences rarely, if ever, withstand appeal. Other prosecutors and police officers have said the recommendations are a slap in the face to police. I don't understand that either.

Throughout this, I have always pointed out that there is enough blame to go around for everyone. The commission highlights the need for better-trained defense attorneys and judges. It even suggests the state has not pulled its weight and provided enough money for things like DNA labs and a database, things that will help protect the innocent and convict only the guilty. No one is spared from accountability because we are all accountable. Our system is riddled with errors and omissions from top to bottom.

That is why I believe it is so vitally important that hearings are held this summer. We must have an honest debate about our system and whether or not it can be repaired I don't know of any crime victim, police officer, prosecutor or politician who wants to see an innocent person executed. It is easy to be for the death penalty in the abstract. But until you sit where I sit, you don't know just how difficult that decision can be.

Is revenge a reason enough for capital punishment? And can it blind the eyes of those pursuing justice? In the wake of September 11th, many say the American people support the death penalty now more than ever. This country is now at war, and the terrorists who attacked this country, who used passenger jets as missiles killing thousands of innocent men, women and children, were deranged. They were on a suicide mission and the crime they committed was already a capital offense. It was no deterrent. If Osama Bin Laden or his evil co-conspirators are caught, there is not a question they would face the death penalty, and perhaps that is the appropriate penalty.

But my concern is the system in Illinois, fraught with error and convicting and condemning the innocent along with the guilty. When I made my decision to declare a moratorium, I never consulted the opinion polls. Only since my decision do I notice them. A recent Gallup poll was interesting: Only 53% of those polled believe that the death penalty is applied fairly, while 40% say it is applied unfairly. Among non-whites, 54% believe that the death penalty is applied unfairly. When given the sentencing alternative of life without the possibility of parole, 52% of Americans support the death penalty and 43% favor life imprisonment. 82 percent of respondents oppose the death penalty for the mentally retarded, 73% oppose the death penalty for those who are mentally ill, and 69% of Americans oppose capital punishment for juvenile offenders. While that same poll still showed strong support for capital punishment – 72 percent – it is clear the American people are as concerned with fairness now as they have ever been.

At the beginning of my term, after Anthony Porter was freed, I sat in judgment for an inmate convicted of a brutal murder of a young woman. He was also involved in torturing and killing other women. After the Porter case I agonized: I personally reviewed the case files of the convicted murderer Andrew Korkoraleis. I had veteran lawyers review them as well. I talked to victims and investigators. I left no stone unturned. In the end I was convinced Korkoraleis committed a monstrous, unspeakable crime, and he was executed.

Then the Chicago Tribune did a chilling report on the fact that the whole system was flawed. Their findings were echoed in my commission's report. Half of the nearly three hundred capital cases in Illinois had been reversed for a new trial or re-sentencing. Over half! Thirty-three of the death row inmates were represented at trial by an attorney who had later been disbarred or at some point suspended from practicing law. Of the more than one hundred-sixty death row inmates, thirty-five were African-American defendants who had been convicted or condemned to die by all-white juries. More than two-thirds of the inmates on death row are African-American. Forty-six inmates were convicted on the basis of testimony from jailhouse informants.

After Porter and Korkoraleis, I was already starting to question what I believed about capital punishment. The Tribune series left me reeling. And then two more inmates were exonerated. I had to act. After seeing, again and again, how close we came to the ultimate nightmare, I did the only thing I could do. Thirteen times we almost strapped innocent men to a gurney, wheeled them to the state's death chamber and injected fatal doses of poison in their veins. I knew I had to act.

I said two years ago, and I say now, until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate.

A lot of people have called my stand courageous. Those are nice words, but they are nonsense. It was just the right thing to do. I also must decide what to do with the nearly one hundred sixty death row inmates who were convicted under our current broken system.

There is no question that there are guilty criminals on death row in Illinois. But, at our current rate of thirteen exonerations for every twenty-five death row inmates, and a fifty-percent reversal rate by the courts, the odds are as good as the flip of coin that there are also innocent men languishing behind bars.

My commission concluded that its recommendations will significantly improve the fairness and accuracy of the Illinois death penalty system. But it also concluded, "No system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no… innocent person is ever again sentenced to death." That's a powerful statement. It is one that I will ponder.

How has my faith influenced how I have faced this difficult issue? How do I deal with fundamental questions of justice and fairness and morality? I just try to follow my heart and my conscience. I have tried to remember what I've learned from my faith and my family. And, perhaps like you, I might reflect upon what God told the Israelites in Isaiah, "Keep justice and do righteousness."

That, I pray, is what we will do. Thank you, and good night.
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." – Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Postby lukpac » Mon May 23, 2005 5:45 pm

Matt wrote:The repercussions of committing murder should logically deter a rational person. Isn't that the best policy our legal system has to deter murder? Life without parole obviously isn't enough.


"Obviously isn't enough"? Why not?

As far as "rational" people go, do you honestly think many people would be more open to muder if they knew they couldn't get killed for it? "Well, I'd like to muder my ex-wife, but since this state has the death penalty I think I'll hold off on that."

Not many murderers are executed presently, so it is not a completely satisfactory deterrent.


See above.
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Postby Rspaight » Mon May 23, 2005 7:13 pm

The death penalty has never been shown to be an effective deterrent. Its only functions are emotional and political. The number of executions is immaterial.

(If we don't see a statistical drop in capital crimes after widespread use of the death penalty, would it make a difference if we made the executions progressively more gruesome? Of course not. Saudi Arabia has some of the most brutal and public executions in the world, and they seem to have a steady supply of the condemned.)

Ryan
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Postby Dob » Mon May 23, 2005 7:45 pm

Rspaight wrote:What purpose does the death penalty serve, apart from vengeance?

Well, it does serve to publicly demonstrate the ultimate power and control of the state, but I don't think that's the sort of "purpose" you're looking for.

IMO, executions are meant more to placate vigilantes than to deter potential murderers.
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Postby Matt » Tue May 24, 2005 8:15 am

lukpac wrote:"Obviously isn't enough"? Why not?



Image

lukpac wrote:As far as "rational" people go, do you honestly think many people would be more open to muder if they knew they couldn't get killed for it?


They shouldn't be, but who can say, given that many do not get the death penalty for murder.

lukpac wrote:See above.


I take it you are reffering to the exonerations. Yes that is a problem. Convicting the innocent is one of the worst crimes imaginable to me. That indeed is a failure of the justice system. Sadly, the real killers are still at large.
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Postby lukpac » Tue May 24, 2005 8:51 am

Matt wrote:Image


Umm...ok. What does that have to do with anything? You said:

Life without parole obviously isn't enough.


And I asked why. What does the number of people on death row have to do with anything?

They shouldn't be, but who can say, given that many do not get the death penalty for murder.


So I guess the only way we'll find out is if everyone who has ever murdered someone gets put to death.

:roll:

I take it you are reffering to the exonerations.


No, I was responding to your claim of:

Not many murderers are executed presently, so it is not a completely satisfactory deterrent.


My point is that what proof is there that the death penalty will deter anyone from murdering any more than life in prison?

Yes that is a problem. Convicting the innocent is one of the worst crimes imaginable to me. That indeed is a failure of the justice system. Sadly, the real killers are still at large.


And the death penalty doesn't exactly help in finding them, either.
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Postby Rspaight » Tue May 24, 2005 12:27 pm

Matt wrote:Image


Yep, looks like a good deterrent to me. Obviously, the threat of the death penalty has driven the capital crime rate down to nil.

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Postby Stretcher Case » Tue May 24, 2005 1:30 pm

Average of murder rates among death penalty states in 2003: 5.3
Average of murder rates among non-death penalty states in 2003: 2.9

Overall murder rates are WAY down from 10 years ago.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article ... 12&did=169

Looks like the "deterrent effect" isn't working.
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Postby Matt » Tue May 24, 2005 3:05 pm

If the death row population is increasing then we can obviously assume more people are getting sentenced to death. Since the overall murder rates are decreasing at the same time, can't we assume something is deterring murder?
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Postby MK » Tue May 24, 2005 3:21 pm

It's kind of a stretch there. You're making some pretty broad assumptions based on some vague analysis. If that's the case, why are murder rates in non-death penalty states significantly lower than those of death penalty states?

Then you'd have to ignore the countless other social variables of the last 10 years: economic factors, population shifts, even changes in other crimes that are tied to homicide, etc.
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Postby Rspaight » Tue May 24, 2005 3:25 pm

Actually, it looks like the death row population has plateaued in the last 6-8 years, matching the drop in the crime rate.

The important thing to remember is that death penalty convictions far outnumber executions, so *any* continuing convictions will in all likelihood cause the death row population to increase.

Ryan
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Postby Bennett Cerf » Tue May 24, 2005 8:01 pm

Matt wrote:Sadly, the real killers are still at large.


Sadly, when you begin a sentence with "sadly" in a political debate, I know not to trust you.

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Postby Stretcher Case » Tue May 24, 2005 10:32 pm

MK wrote:It's kind of a stretch there. You're making some pretty broad assumptions based on some vague analysis. If that's the case, why are murder rates in non-death penalty states significantly lower than those of death penalty states?

Then you'd have to ignore the countless other social variables of the last 10 years: economic factors, population shifts, even changes in other crimes that are tied to homicide, etc.


The correlation is there. Poor socioeconomics = Massive clamoring for death penalty = Higher murder rate.

Sounds like a red state thing to me.
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Postby dcooper » Wed May 25, 2005 3:47 pm

So, Matt, where do you come down on stem cell research? I'm hoping you don't share the President's hypocrisy on this issue ... if you believe all life is sacred and therefore we can't "kill" innocent babies (embryoes to the educated world) in order to save others, killing murderers cannot be correctly reasoned to save others. Either you believe all life is sacred or you don't. There shouldn't be a gray area there.
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Postby Stretcher Case » Wed May 25, 2005 7:04 pm

dcooper wrote:So, Matt, where do you come down on stem cell research? I'm hoping you don't share the President's hypocrisy on this issue ... if you believe all life is sacred and therefore we can't "kill" innocent babies (embryoes to the educated world) in order to save others, killing murderers cannot be correctly reasoned to save others. Either you believe all life is sacred or you don't. There shouldn't be a gray area there.


Matt can't answer the phone right now. He's too busy making money off of oil stocks.

Typical Republican -- get the libs all bent outta shape on social issues and then run off laughing to the bank!!
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