Four years ago I was sworn in as the governor of Illinois. … And I believed that the ultimate penalty for the taking of a life was administrated in a just and fair manner.
Today, 2 1/2 days before I end my term as governor, I stand before you to explain my frustrations and deep concerns about both the administration and the penalty of death.
Since the beginning … my thoughts and feelings about the death penalty have changed many, many times. And I realize that over the course of my reviews I had said that I would not do blanket commutation. I have also said that it was on the front burner, that it was on the back burner. I’ve said it was an option and that I would consider all options….
I grew up in Kankakee, which even today is still a small Midwestern town. It’s not far from Chicago, but in many ways it is. It’s a place where people tend to know each other. I had a great neighbor named Steve Small. He and his wife would baby-sit my young children–which was not for the faint of heart since Lura Lynn and I had six children, five of them under the age of 3. He was a bright young man who helped run the family business. He and his wife had three children of their own. Lura Lynn was especially close to him….
One September midnight he received a call at his home. There had been a break-in at the Frank Lloyd Wright house he was renovating. But as he left his house, he was seized at gunpoint by kidnappers. They took him and buried him alive in a shallow hole. He died before police could find him.
His killer eventually led police to where Steve’s body was buried. The killer, Danny Edwards, was also from Kankakee. He now sits on Death Row. I also know his family. I share this story with you so that you know I do not come to this as a neophyte without having experienced a small bit of the bitter pill the survivors of murder must swallow.
But my responsibilities and obligations are more than my neighborhoods and my family. I represent all the people of Illinois. And the decision I make about our criminal justice system is felt not only here but the world over….
I never intended to be an activist on this issue. I watched in surprise and amazement as freed Death Row inmate Anthony Porter was released from jail. . . . Anthony Porter was 48 hours away from being wheeled into the execution chamber, where the state would kill him.
It would all be so antiseptic, and most of us would not have even paused … except that Anthony Porter was innocent of the double murder for which he had been convicted by the state of Illinois and condemned to die.
After Mr. Porter’s case there was the report by Chicago Tribune reporters Steve Mills and Ken Armstrong documenting the systemic failures of our capital punishment system. … Half of the nearly 300 capital cases in Illinois had been reversed for a new trial or for sentencing.
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 160 Death Row inmates, 35 were African-American defendants who had been convicted or condemned to die not by juries of their peers but by all-white juries.
More than two-thirds of the inmates on Death Row were African-American.
And 46 inmates were convicted on the basis of testimony from jailhouse informants.
I can recall looking at these cases and the information from the Mills-Armstrong series, and I asked myself: How does that happen? How in God’s name does that happen? In America, how does it happen? I’ve been asking for three years, and nobody has answered the question….
Earlier [last] year, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional and cruel and unusual punishment to execute the mentally retarded. It’s now the law of the land. How many people have we already executed who were mentally retarded and are now dead and buried? …
The court decision was last spring. The General Assembly of the state of Illinois has failed to pass any measure defining what constitutes mental retardation. We are a rudderless ship because they failed to act. …
Some people have assailed my power to commute sentences, a power that literally hundreds of legal scholars from across the country have defended. But prosecutors in Illinois have the ultimate commutation power, a power that is exercised every day. They decide who will be subject to the death penalty, who will get a plea deal or even who may get a complete pass on prosecution. … There were more than 1,000 murders last year in Illinois. There is no doubt that all murders are cruel and wrong. Yet, less than 2 percent of those murder defendants will receive the death penalty. That means more than 98 percent of victims’ families do not get and will not receive whatever satisfaction can be derived from the execution of the murderer. Moreover … a killing with the same circumstances might get 40 years in one county and death in another county. I have also seen where co-defendants who are equally guilty while another less-culpable defendant ends up on Death Row.
In my case-by-case review, I found three people that fell in that category. Montell Johnson, Mario Flores and William Franklin. Today, I have commuted their sentences to a term of 40 years to bring their fair sentences into line with their co-defendants and to reflect the other extraordinary circumstances of these cases.
For years, the criminal justice system defended and upheld the imposition of the death penalty for the 17 exonerated inmates from Illinois Death Row. Yet when the real killers are charged, prosecutors have often sought sentences of less than death. In the Ford Heights 4 case, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams fought the death sentences for 18 years before they were exonerated. Later, Cook County prosecutors sought life in prison for two of the real killers and a sentence of 80 years for a third.
What made the murder for which the Ford Highs 4 were sentenced to die less heinous and worthy of the death penalty 20 years later with a new set of defendants?
… I spent a good deal of time reviewing these Death Row cases. My staff, many of whom are lawyers, spent busy days and many sleepless nights answering questions, providing me with information and giving me a lot of great advice. It became clear to me that whatever decision I made, I would be criticized. It also became clear to me that it was impossible to make reliable choices about whether our capital punishment system had really done its job.
And as I came closer to my decision, I knew that I was going to have to face the question of whether I believed so completely in the choice I wanted to make that I could face the prospect of even commuting the death sentence of Danny Edwards from Kankakee–the man who had killed a close family friend of mine. My wife is angry and disappointed at my decision like many of the families of other victims will be.
I was struck by the anger of the families of murder victims. To a family, they talked about closure. They pleaded with me to allow the state to kill an inmate in its name to provide the families with closure. But is that the purpose of capital punishment? Is it to soothe the families? And is that truly what the families experience?
I cannot imagine losing a family member to murder. Nor can I imagine spending every waking day for 20 years with a single-minded focus to execute the killer. The system of death in Illinois is so unsure that it is not unusual for cases to take 20 years before they are resolved. And thank God. If it had moved any faster, then Anthony Porter, the Ford Heights 4, Ronald Jones, Madison Hobley and all the other innocent men we’ve exonerated might already be dead and buried.
But it is cruel and unusual punishment for family members to go through this pain, this legal limbo for 20 years. Perhaps it would be less cruel if we sentenced the killers to life in 6-by-12 cells and used our resources to better serve victims.
… I have also had to watch in frustration as members of the Illinois General Assembly failed to pass even one substantive death-penalty reform in this state. Not one. They couldn’t even agree on one. How much more evidence is needed before the General Assembly will take its responsibility in this area seriously? The General Assembly has thumbed its nose at [reform]. …
As I prepare to leave the office of governor, I had to ask myself whether I could really live with the prospect of knowing that I had the opportunity to act but failed to do so because I might be criticized. Could I take the chance that our capital punishment system might be reformed? That wrongful convictions might not occur? Those enterprising journalism students might free more men from Death Row? A system that’s so fragile that it depends on young journalism students is seriously flawed. …
In 1994, near the end of his very distinguished career on the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote an influential dissent … on capital punishment. Twenty years earlier he was part of the court that issued the landmark Furman decision (making the death penalty unconstitutional). …
Many states responded to Furman by developing and enacting new death-penalty statutes. In 1976 … Justice Blackmun joined the majority of the United States Supreme Court in deciding to give the states a chance with these new and improved death-penalty statutes.
This was the climate in 1977, when the Illinois legislature was faced with the momentous decision of whether to reinstate the death penalty in Illinois. I was a member of the General Assembly. And at that time, I pushed the green button in favor of reinstating the death penalty. … I did so with the belief that whatever problems had plagued the capital punishment system in the past were now being cured. I am sure that most of my colleagues who voted with me on that day shared that view.
But 20 years later, after affirming hundreds of death-penalty decisions, Justice Blackmun came to the realization, in the twilight of his very distinguished career, that the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake. … In a now very famous dissent he wrote in 1994, “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”
One of the few disappointments of my legislative and executive career is that the General Assembly failed to work with me to reform our system after we had such a complete and thorough study done.
I don’t know why legislators could not heed the rising of voices of reform. I don’t know how many more systemic flaws we need to uncover before they would be spurred to action.
Three times I proposed reforming the system with a package that would restrict the use of jailhouse snitches, create a statewide panel to determine death-eligible cases, reduce the number of crimes eligible for death. These reforms would not have created a perfect system, but they would have dramatically reduced the chance for error.
… Our state constitution provides broad power to the governor to issue reprieves, pardons and commutations. Our Supreme Court has reminded inmates petitioning … that the last resort for relief is the governor.
At times, the executive clemency power has perhaps been a crutch for courts to avoid making the kind of major change that I believe this system needs.
Our systemic case-by-case review has found more cases of innocent men wrongfully sentenced to Death Row. Because our three-year study has found only more questions about the fairness of the sentencing; because of the spectacular failure to reform the system; because we have seen justice delayed for countless Death Row inmates with potentially meritorious claims; and because the Illinois death-penalty system is arbitrary and capricious–and therefore immoral–I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. …
The legislature couldn’t reform it.
Lawmakers won’t repeal it.
And I won’t stand for it. I had to act. …
There have been many nights where my staff and I have been deprived of sleep in order to conduct our exhaustive review of the system. But I can tell you this: I will sleep well tonight knowing that I made the right decision. …
To say it plainly one more time–the Illinois capital punishment system is broken. It has taken innocent men to a hair’s breadth escape from their unjust execution. Legislatures past have refused to fix it. Our new legislature and our new governor must act to rid our state of the shame of threatening the innocent with execution and the guilty with unfairness.
