An attempt by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (pic­tured) to rein­state Illinois’ death penal­ty by attach­ing it as an ​“amenda­to­ry veto” to pro­posed gun-con­trol leg­is­la­tion has failed. Rather than accede to a plan that would con­di­tion stricter gun reg­u­la­tion upon rein­tro­duc­ing the death penal­ty for mur­ders of police offi­cers and any mur­der with more than a sin­gle vic­tim, the state leg­is­la­ture rewrote the gun-con­trol mea­sure the gov­er­nor had amend­ed, drop­ping any men­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In May, Gov. Rauner used an amenda­to­ry veto — a pow­er some gov­er­nors are grant­ed that per­mits them to amend leg­is­la­tion in lieu of an out­right veto — to add death-penal­ty rein­state­ment to a bill that cre­at­ed a 72-hour wait­ing peri­od for gun pur­chas­es. The gov­er­nor’s pro­vi­sions would have cre­at­ed a new crime of ​“death penal­ty mur­der,” poten­tial­ly applic­a­ble when­ev­er a police offi­cer or more than one per­son was killed, sub­ject to a ​“proof beyond all doubt.” Rauner tout­ed his changes, which also includ­ed addi­tion­al gun con­trol mea­sures, as a com­pre­hen­sive pub­lic-safe­ty pol­i­cy, but crit­ics called it polit­i­cal grand­stand­ing and state pros­e­cu­tors object­ed to its adop­tion through the veto process with­out mean­ing­ful review and con­sid­er­a­tion. In a let­ter to the state House Judiciary-Criminal Committee, John Milhiser, the asso­ci­a­tion’s President, wrote: ​“there is no con­sen­sus of opin­ion on sup­port for the death penal­ty” among Illinois pros­e­cu­tors, but they agreed that the pro­pos­al ​“involves con­sti­tu­tion­al and legal con­cerns that can­not be eval­u­at­ed in the brief time thus far allot­ted.” 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.” The state house held a brief hear­ing on the bill on May 21, but did not act on it with­in the 15-day state con­sti­tu­tion­al win­dow pre­scribed for con­sent­ing to an amenda­to­ry veto. On May 31, 2018, the final day of the leg­isla­tive ses­sion, the leg­is­la­ture passed a clean ver­sion of the 72-hour wait­ing peri­od bill, with no men­tion of the death-penal­ty pro­pos­al. Governor Rauner has 60 days from pas­sage to take action on that bill.

(Brenden Moore, 72-hour gun pur­chase wait peri­od bill heads to Rauner’s desk, The Herald & Review, June 1, 2018; Daisy Contreras, Illinois Lawmakers Hear Arguments On Rauner’s Death Penalty Plan, Illinois Public Media, May 22, 2018) Read the let­ter from the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association to the Illinois House Judiciary Committee. See Recent Legislative Activity.

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