llli­nois Governor Bruce Rauner has con­di­tion­al­ly vetoed a gun-con­trol ini­tia­tive unless the leg­is­la­ture agrees to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Exercising an amenda­to­ry veto—a pow­er some gov­er­nors are grant­ed that per­mits them to amend leg­is­la­tion in lieu of an out­right veto — Rauner called for mak­ing the killing of a police offi­cer or any mur­der in which more than one per­son was killed a new crime of ​“death penal­ty mur­der.” In a May 14, 2018 news con­fer­ence at the Illinois State Police foren­sic lab­o­ra­to­ry in Chicago, Rauner said ​“indi­vid­u­als who com­mit mass mur­der, indi­vid­u­als who choose to mur­der a law enforce­ment offi­cer, they deserve to have their life tak­en.” He attached his death-penal­ty plan and sev­er­al oth­er gun-con­trol amend­ments to a bill that would have estab­lished a 72-hour wait­ing peri­od for the pur­chase of assault rifles in Illinois. Legislative lead­ers and major Illinois news­pa­pers blast­ed the action as diver­sion­ary polit­i­cal games­man­ship by a weak­ened gov­er­nor fac­ing a dif­fi­cult re-elec­tion cam­paign, and said the death-penal­ty plan had lit­tle chance of enact­ment. Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Carroll, the gun-con­trol bil­l’s spon­sor, said the gov­er­nor had not con­sult­ed him about pos­si­ble changes and had ​“hijacked my bill and put pol­i­tics ahead of pol­i­cy.” Senate President John Cullerton said: ​“The death penal­ty should nev­er be used as a polit­i­cal tool to advance one’s agen­da. Doing so is in large part why we had so many prob­lems and over­turned con­vic­tions. That’s why we had bipar­ti­san sup­port to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Thomas Sullivan, the co-chair of Commission on Capital Punishment in Illinois appoint­ed by Republican Gov. George Ryan, said Rauner’s plan was a ​“lousy idea.” He called the death penal­ty expen­sive and time-con­sum­ing, and said, ​“It doesn’t reduce crime.” The Chicago Tribune edi­to­r­i­al board char­ac­ter­ized Rauner’s amenda­to­ry veto as ​“cyn­i­cal” and a ​“death penal­ty ploy” that the paper said was intend­ed ​“to re-estab­lish [Rauner’s] bona fides with dis­grun­tled con­ser­v­a­tive Republicans.” A Chicago Sun-Times edi­to­r­i­al said the gov­er­nor knew he was ​“load[ing] up the bill with so many major new pro­vi­sions that there is no way” the state leg­is­la­ture would approve it, enabling Rauner to claim he ​“didn’t tech­ni­cal­ly kill the cool­ing off peri­od … with­out strict­ly telling a lie.” In 2000, after a series of death-row exon­er­a­tions, Ryan declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Illinois and appoint­ed the com­mis­sion, and in 2003 com­mut­ed the sen­tences of every­one on the state’s death row. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty in 2011. The Tribune edi­to­r­i­al said: ​“The death penal­ty issue in Illinois was exam­ined and debat­ed for years in light of noto­ri­ous inci­dents of wrong­ly con­vict­ed defen­dants sent to death row. In Illinois, the legit­i­mate sen­ti­ment of many that cer­tain heinous crim­i­nals should be put to death was weighed against the risk of errors, and the deci­sion was made to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. … [N]othing has changed to make Rauner’s [May 14] announce­ment wor­thy of consideration.”

Rauner’s plan would man­date the death penal­ty upon con­vic­tion of ​“death penal­ty mur­der.” A con­vic­tion would require proof ​“beyond all doubt” and appeals courts would con­duct an inde­pen­dent review of the evi­dence with­out defer­ring to the jury’s judg­ment. Although the jury would be told a death sen­tence would be imposed upon con­vic­tion, there would be a sep­a­rate hear­ing before a judge in which the defen­dant would present mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in an attempt to spare his or her life. Mandatory death sen­tences and false­ly instruct­ing juries about the law both vio­late the con­sti­tu­tion, and the judi­cial factfind­ing pro­vi­sion may vio­late a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s right to a jury trial. 

A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of U.S. mur­der data from 1987 through 2015 has found no evi­dence that the death penal­ty deters mur­der or pro­tects police. Instead, the evi­dence shows that mur­der rates, includ­ing mur­ders of police offi­cers, are con­sis­tent­ly high­er in death-penal­ty states than in states that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The data showed that 18 of the 20 states that have the high­est rate of offi­cer vic­tim­iza­tion are death-penal­ty states, while 8 of the 9 safest states for police offi­cers do not have the death penal­ty. The study hypoth­e­sized that if the death penal­ty con­tributed to the safe­ty of police offi­cers, death penal­ty states would expe­ri­ence com­par­a­tive­ly few­er killings of police offi­cers as a per­cent­age of all mur­ders. But the data showed no such effects, and states with­out the death penal­ty — includ­ing Illinois — com­prised 9 of the 10 states with the small­est per­cent­age of homi­cides involv­ing law-enforcement victims. 

(Kim Geiger, Monique Garcia, and Dan Hinkel, Rauner pro­pos­es rein­stat­ing death penal­ty in Illinois, which out­lawed it ear­li­er this decade, Chicago Tribune, May 14, 2018; John O’Connor, Gov. Rauner seeks to rein­state death penal­ty, Associated Press, May 14, 2018; Editorial: Rauner’s death penal­ty ploy, Chicago Tribune, May 14, 2018; EDITORIAL: Bruce Rauner plays pure pol­i­tics with death penal­ty and guns, Chicago Sun-Times, May 14, 2018.) Read Governor Rauner’s amenda­to­ry veto mes­sage. See Editorials and Recent Legislative Activity.

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