Illinois

History of the Death Penalty

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Gregg v. Georgia, Illinois’s state leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1974. The first exe­cu­tion under the new statute was that of Charles Walker in 1990, fol­lowed by eleven more exe­cu­tions until the final Illinois exe­cu­tion was car­ried out in 1999. All exe­cu­tions in Illinois since 1974 were car­ried out through lethal injection.

Notable Exonerations

Anthony Porter: Convicted in 1983 for a dou­ble mur­der com­mit­ted near a pool on Chicago’s South Side, Porter spent near­ly 17 years on Illinois’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit, all the while main­tain­ing his inno­cence. The case was bro­ken by inves­ti­ga­tor Paul Ciolino work­ing with Professor David Protess and jour­nal­ism stu­dents from Northwestern University, who tracked down both the orig­i­nal wit­ness­es and the actu­al killer. Their inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that the state’s sole eye­wit­ness, in a total of 17 hours of inter­ro­ga­tion, had been ​“threat­ened, harassed, and intim­i­dat­ed” into tes­ti­fy­ing that Porter was the killer. Porter was released in February 1999 on the motion of the State’s Attorney after Ciolino con­vinced anoth­er man to con­fess on video­tape to the dou­ble mur­der that sent Porter to death row. Charges were filed against the oth­er man, who claimed he killed in self-defense. Porter had come with­in 2 days of exe­cu­tion in 1998, grant­ed a last minute reprieve because the Court want­ed to look into his men­tal com­pe­ten­cy after an IQ test revealed that Porter has an IQ of 51. His con­vic­tion was offi­cial­ly reversed on March 11, 1999. Porter’s case is cred­it­ed with reignit­ing pub­lic debate on the death penal­ty in Illinois, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to a mora­to­ri­um fol­lowed by abolition.

On January 11, 2003, at the same time that the Governor of Illinois issued a blan­ket com­mu­ta­tion to all death row inmates in Illinois, four of the con­demned were issued a par­don: Aaron Patterson, Leroy Orange, Madison Hobley, and Stanley Howard. These four belonged to the ​“Death Row Ten,” a group of inmates who claimed that their con­vic­tions were due to false con­fes­sions obtained via police tor­ture at the hands of noto­ri­ous Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. Among the tac­tics alleged­ly uti­lized by the police to elic­it con­fes­sions were the use of cat­tle prods to shock sus­pects in the gen­i­tals, beat­ing sus­pects over the head with phone­books, and point­ing guns in the face of minors.

Gabriel Solache, a Mexican nation­al whose death sen­tence was one of 157 com­mut­ed by Governor George Ryan in January 2003, was exon­er­at­ed on December 21, 2017 after twen­ty years of wrong­ful impris­on­ment, but imme­di­ate­ly seized by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Cook County pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against Solache and his co-defen­dant Arturo DeLeon-Reyes after Circuit Court Judge James Obbish over­turned their con­vic­tions, find­ing that dis­graced Chicago detec­tive Reynaldo Guevara had told ​“bald-faced lies” under oath when he tes­ti­fied to hav­ing no mem­o­ry of inter­ro­gat­ing Solache and DeLeon-Reyes and denied hav­ing beat­en false con­fes­sions out of the men. No phys­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal evi­dence linked either man to the mur­der, but they were con­vict­ed based upon con­fes­sions they have long said were coerced by Guevara over the course of three days of inter­ro­ga­tion in which they were denied their right to con­sular assis­tance by the Mexican gov­ern­ment, deprived of sleep, and giv­en lit­tle food or drink until they false­ly implicated themselves. 

Illinois has 22 exon­er­a­tions from death row, the sec­ond most of any state. Visit DPIC’s Innocence page to learn more about them.

Famous Cases

The most noto­ri­ous death penal­ty case in the his­to­ry of Illinois, indeed one of the most famous in the United States, was that of infa­mous ser­i­al killer John Wayne Gacy. Gacy mur­dered 33 vic­tims between 1972 and 1978. All of his vic­tims were boys between the age of 14 and 21. In March of 1980 Gacy was con­vict­ed of the 33 mur­ders and sen­tenced to death. After 14 years of appeals, Gacy was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on May 10, 1994. At the time of his exe­cu­tion, no oth­er per­son had been con­vict­ed of as many mur­ders in the his­to­ry of the United States.

Another famous exe­cu­tion in Illinois was that of Girvies Davis. Convicted of mur­der­ing an 89 year old man, the only evi­dence against Davis was a con­fes­sion that Davis claims was obtained under threat of death. Prison guards claim that on September 9^th, 1979, Davis, who was incar­cer­at­ed on oth­er charges, passed them a note admit­ting to sev­er­al mur­ders. Prison logs show that he was signed out at 10pm for what was sup­pos­ed­ly a trip for Davis to help inves­ti­ga­tors gath­er evi­dence. At the end of this trip, inves­ti­ga­tors say Davis signed 20 con­fes­sions for sep­a­rate crimes. Davis’s sto­ry of the night is marked­ly dif­fer­ent; in his clemen­cy peti­tion he states that at about 2am on the night of the trip the offi­cers pulled over to the side of the road and let Davis out of the car. After remov­ing his hand­cuffs and man­a­cles, the offi­cers pro­duced a stack of con­fes­sions and unhol­stered their guns, point­ing them direct­ly at Davis. Davis says he was giv­en two choic­es: sign the con­fes­sions or attempt to get away. His lawyers also say that Davis could not have penned the note that prison guards say Davis passed to them, because at the time Davis was func­tion­al­ly illit­er­ate and only learned to read while in jail. Despite the doubts cast on his con­vic­tion, Davis’s clemen­cy peti­tions and appeals were denied, and he was exe­cut­ed in May of 1995.

Notable Commutations/​Clemencies

The exon­er­a­tion and release in 1999 of death row inmate Anthony Porter sparked a statewide debate on the death penal­ty and its mer­its. Shortly after Porter’s release, Governor George Ryan declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and estab­lished a spe­cial Governor’s Commission to study the death penal­ty sys­tem as admin­is­tered in Illinois. Just 2 days before leav­ing office in January of 2003, Governor Ryan deter­mined that the death penal­ty was ​“fraught with error” and com­mut­ed the sen­tences of all 167 death row inmates to ​“life” terms. While not the first blan­ket com­mu­ta­tion in US his­to­ry, it is by far the largest, rep­re­sent­ing rough­ly two-thirds of all com­mu­ta­tions in the U.S. since 1976.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

The Illinois leg­is­la­ture passed a death penal­ty rein­state­ment bill in 1973, fol­low­ing the Supreme Court’s deci­sion to strike down all exist­ing death penal­ty laws in 1972. That law took effect on July 1, 1974, but was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1975. On June 21, 1977, Governor James Thompson signed a new rein­state­ment bill that was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 1979 and remained in effect until 2011.

In January 2000, Governor George Ryan estab­lished a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions that would last more than 10 years. At that point in Illinois’ his­to­ry, the state had exon­er­at­ed 13 death row inmates in the same time that it had exe­cut­ed 12. Illinois has not exe­cut­ed any­one since the mora­to­ri­um began, but it has exon­er­at­ed 7 addi­tion­al inmates, for a total of 20.

Although Ryan’s suc­ces­sor Rod Blagojevich kept the mora­to­ri­um in place, the state con­tin­ued to seek death sen­tences, adding 15 defen­dants to the state’s recent­ly vacat­ed death row. The death penal­ty was a major issue in the 2010 guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The elec­tion of Democrat Pat Quinn paved the way for votes on a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty in the Illinois House and Senate, and on March 9^th, 2011 Governor Quinn signed leg­is­la­tion that made Illinois the 16^th state to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Since the leg­is­la­tion was not retroac­tive, Quinn com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of all 15 men on Illinois’ death row.

Resources

• Department of Corrections
• Prosecutors
• Public defend­er’s office
• Victims’ ser­vices

Illinois Execution Totals Since 1976