Illinois Commutations Twenty Years Ago Marked Turning Point in Death-Penalty Abolition

January 11, 2023 marks the twen­ti­eth anniver­sary of for­mer Illinois Governor George Ryan’s deci­sion to grant clemen­cy to every death row pris­on­er in Illinois, the largest blan­ket clemen­cy in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty. It was a water­shed moment in both Illinois’ crim­i­nal jus­tice his­to­ry and in the ongo­ing nation­al con­ver­sa­tion about the death penalty.

In a 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Ryan explained what led him to make the deci­sion to com­mute 167 death sen­tences, even though he had pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ed in favor of rein­stat­ing the state’s death penal­ty when he was a mem­ber of the state leg­is­la­ture. Early in his term, in 1999, Anthony Porter was exon­er­at­ed from Illinois’ death row after com­ing with­in days of exe­cu­tion. ​“He was exon­er­at­ed by jour­nal­ism stu­dents at Northwestern University,” Ryan said, ​“so there wasn’t any­thing that the sys­tem could say, ​‘Oh, the sys­tem real­ly works.’ Because the sys­tem didn’t. And if it hadn’t been for the jour­nal­ism stu­dents at Northwestern, Anthony Porter would be in a box right now.” In an inter­view with ABC 7 Chicago, Ryan said, ​“My con­cern basi­cal­ly was if I had left office and did­n’t do any­thing about it and woke up one morn­ing and found some inno­cent per­son had died, I would have to live with that the rest of my life.”

After the Porter exon­er­a­tion, Ryan said that he start­ed to do more research into the death penal­ty. ​“At that time, we had exon­er­at­ed 13 [peo­ple] … and we had exe­cut­ed 12. So, it’s kind of like flip­ping a coin to live or die with the death penal­ty.” Ryan insti­tut­ed a statewide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2000 and con­vened a Governor’s Commission on the death penal­ty. After the com­mis­sion returned 85 rec­om­men­da­tions to ​“lessen the chance that an inno­cent per­son was going to be exe­cut­ed,” and the state leg­is­la­ture only passed one of the pro­posed reforms, Ryan took direct action. Two days before leav­ing office, cit­ing a death penal­ty sys­tem that was ​“fraught with error,” he com­mut­ed all the state’s death sen­tences to life with­out parole. Ryan also grant­ed par­dons to four death-row pris­on­ers he had con­clud­ed were innocent.

The com­mu­ta­tions paved the way for Illinois’ even­tu­al abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in 2011, but the effects of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem have lin­gered. In 2022, Marilyn Mulero became the 16^th for­mer death-row pris­on­er to be exon­er­at­ed from Cook County, Illinois, which has had more death-row exon­er­a­tions than any oth­er U.S. coun­ty. Many of these exon­er­a­tions are attrib­ut­able to the bru­tal tac­tics used by Jon Burge, a for­mer com­man­der in the Chicago police depart­ment, who led the noto­ri­ous ​“Burge squad” in tor­tur­ing sus­pects to force con­fes­sions in the 70s and 80s. Illinois is still pay­ing for Burge’s bru­tal­i­ty in the lit­er­al sense; the state has paid $108.2 mil­lion in set­tle­ments, ver­dicts, and repa­ra­tions to vic­tims of Burge’s tac­tics and wrongful convictions. 

Ryan’s deci­sion was a land­mark in the nation­al con­ver­sa­tion about the death penal­ty, as well as in Illinois crim­i­nal jus­tice. In addi­tion to Illinois, ten oth­er states have abol­ished the death penal­ty in the 20 years since the mass com­mu­ta­tion in 2003. Governors in sev­er­al states have also tak­en more proac­tive roles in curb­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with­out abol­ish­ing it. Currently, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania all have gov­er­nor-imposed mora­to­ria on. In December 2022, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued the sec­ond-largest mass com­mu­ta­tion in the mod­ern death penal­ty era, resen­tenc­ing the 17 pris­on­ers on the state’s death row to life without parole.