Five innocent men who sat for years on Death Row stood Tuesday with the families of several condemned men in a united plea for Gov. George Ryan to commute all death sentences in Illinois.
Meeting in state offices of the Thompson Center downtown, the group specifically requested that the governor give full pardons to a group of men known as the Death Row 10, who confessed to crimes after they were allegedly tortured by police. 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.
“You’ve got men sitting on Death Row just as innocent as I am,” said Perry Cobb, who was wrongfully convicted of a double murder in 1977. “Don’t you allow blood to get on your hands. Be strong, governor.”
Ryan, whose term in office ends Monday, drew international attention three years ago when he imposed a moratorium on executions after declaring the death penalty system so flawed he could not be sure some innocent people would not be put to death. Before he leaves office, he is expected to grant clemency to some, if not all, Death Row inmates in the state.
In Ryan’s final days, activists on both sides of the death penalty debate have made enormous efforts to have their message heard, with Tuesday’s emotional plea being only the latest in a series of conferences and meetings aimed at getting Ryan’s attention.
Jeanette Johnson, the mother of Death Row inmate Stanley Howard, spoke quietly but firmly on behalf of her son, who she contends was forced to confess to a 1984 murder.
“All these cases, just wipe them clean,” she said, imploring Ryan to grant a blanket clemency and pardon her son.
She stood with Robin Hobley, the sister of Madison Hobley, who was sentenced to death in 1990 for setting a South Side building on fire, killing his wife and son and five others.
Both men are among the Death Row 10.
“There are innocent people sitting on Death Row,” Robin Hobley said. “My brother Madison is one of them. I have to believe there are more.”
Prosecutors have long opposed the appeals of Hobley and Madison and criticized the governor for paying little heed to the feelings of the families of murder victims.
Darby Tillis, who was charged with the same murders as Cobb and sat on Death Row for more than nine years before being acquitted at a retrial 10 years later, stood with Robin Hobley and Johnson on Tuesday. Tillis said the system has a shameful history of making victims of the innocent.
He vowed Tuesday to keep fighting for people still facing death who he believes are innocent.
“I was kidnapped, used and abused,” he said of his treatment within the system.
Standing beside Tillis were Gary Gauger, Verneal Jimerson and Anthony Porter, men who also were wrongly sent to Death Row.
“We cannot fix the system,” Gauger said, “but we’ve got to expose the wrongs.”
