U. S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois recent­ly announced at a break­fast hon­or­ing Martin Luther King, Jr., that he has changed his life-long opin­ion on the death penal­ty and now favors its abo­li­tion. Sen. Durbin, who is the sec­ond-rank­ing mem­ber of the U.S. Senate as the assis­tant major­i­ty leader, said that his reflec­tions over many years brought about an evo­lu­tion in his think­ing about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with respect to its unfair­ness and the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. He not­ed, There are many peo­ple who com­mit heinous crimes, and I’d be the first to stand up with emo­tion and say they should lose their lives. But when I look at the unfair­ness of it, the fact that the poor and peo­ple of col­or are most often the vic­tims when it comes to the death penal­ty, and how many cas­es we’ve got­ten wrong now that we have DNA evi­dence to back us up, I mean, it just tells me life impris­on­ment is penal­ty enough.” In ear­ly January, the Illinois General Assembly pre­sent­ed Governor Pat Quinn with a bill to end the death penal­ty in Illinois.

(B. Schoenburg, Durbin changes stance on death penal­ty,” State Journal-Register, January 17, 2011). Read more New Voices on the death penal­ty. See Innocence and Race.

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