Standing before the razor-wire fences and guard towers of the Pontiac Correctional Center, Rev. Jesse Jackson called Tuesday for Gov. George Ryan to commute the death sentences of all prisoners on Illinois’ Death Row.
The death-penalty system in Illinois is “fatally flawed” and granting blanket clemency is the only realistic step toward justice, said Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
“There are those here who are guilty and there are those here who are innocent. They often cannot be distinguished,” Jackson said.
Ryan, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty nearly three years ago, has said repeatedly that he has not come to a decision on blanket clemency and is focusing on each case individually.
With Ryan’s permission, Jackson took a dozen family members of inmates known as the Death Row 10 into Pontiac. The men were convicted based on investigations by former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives under him. Burge was fired in 1993 over allegations he tortured murder suspects.
The family members surrounded Jackson outside the prison and made their own pleas for Ryan to grant the men clemency.
“My brother sits in this jail with absolutely no evidence to prove he committed a murder,” said Robin Hobley of her brother, Madison Hobley, 42, who was sentenced to death in 1990. He was convicted of setting a South Side building on fire, killing his wife and son and five others.
Robin Thompkins, whose father, Willie Thompkins, is also on Death Row at Pontiac, called for a review of the entire process that led to her father’s conviction.
“We need to take a realistic look at the judicial system,” she said. “This is an opportunity for Gov. Ryan to fix something that is broken.”
Willie Thompkins, 53, was convicted in 1980 for killing two men in Cook County.
Jackson, who opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, said he wasn’t calling for the guilty to be freed, but for the innocent to have a chance to prove their case.
Inadequate counsel, lack of access to DNA testing and poverty led many innocent men to Death Row, Jackson said.
The Death Row inmates Jackson spoke with Tuesday are carefully watching Ryan’s final days in office, he said.
“They like the commutation idea because it takes their heads out of the lion’s mouth, but others want a pardon,” Jackson said.
Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, joined Jackson outside the prison.
“We know there are some people on Death Row in Illinois who are innocent. Isn’t it better we keep 50, 100 or 150 guilty people in prison the rest of their lives instead of executing one innocent person?”
