DPIC: Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment

The Death Penalty Information Center has assem­bled the fol­low­ing press mate­ri­als and Web links to pro­vide easy access to infor­ma­tion regard­ing the work of the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, a blue-rib­bon pan­el that has recent­ly com­plet­ed the nation’s most com­pre­hen­sive state review of the death penal­ty. The Commission’s find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions will sure­ly cap­ture the atten­tion of law­mak­ers and legal experts through­out the nation who are watch­ing close­ly to track the impact of this review beyond Illinois. The Commission’s rec­om­men­da­tions aim to address prob­lems Illinois Governor George Ryan iden­ti­fied two years ago, includ­ing poten­tial safe­guards to pre­vent the pos­si­ble con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion of innocent inmates.

Background Materials

Two years ago, Illinois Governor George Ryan appoint­ed a 14-mem­ber Commission on Capital Punishment to close­ly exam­ine Illinois’s death penal­ty, and he declared the nation’s first mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until the review was com­plet­ed. A mile­stone moment in America’s quest for a fair­er jus­tice sys­tem, Ryan’s step helped spark an unprece­dent­ed series of events through­out the coun­try. Prior to form­ing this com­mis­sion, the Governor declared that his state’s death penal­ty was fraught with error, not­ing: “[The Illinois cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is] so fraught with error and has come so close to the ulti­mate night­mare, the state’s tak­ing of innocent life.” 

Since Ryan’s call for a review of the death penal­ty in Illinois, many gov­er­nors from coast to coast have voiced con­cerns about the fair­ness of their states’ sys­tems, and nine states have launched com­pa­ra­ble stud­ies of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment poli­cies. In addi­tion, leg­is­la­tures in near­ly every state retain­ing the death penal­ty con­sid­ered reform leg­is­la­tion, and an esca­lat­ing num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties and orga­ni­za­tions are call­ing for a halt to exe­cu­tions until cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment con­cerns are addressed.

Further Developments

In April of 2003, Governor Rod Blagojevich announced that he would not recall the mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in Illinois, stat­ing that I don’t feel any arti­fi­cial pres­sure to lift the mora­to­ri­um. I’d like to one day be in the posi­tion to do that, if I thought the posi­tion was fool­proof. But I don’t believe a series of reforms that the Legislature will pass, most of which I sup­port, will do enough to have me feel that the sys­tem won’t make those kinds of mis­takes.” While Blagojevich did sup­port many of the mea­sures approved by the Illinois leg­is­la­ture, he chose to par­tial­ly veto the bill, which includ­ed pro­vi­sions for the ban­ning of the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed. On November 19, 2003, the Illinois leg­is­la­ture unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to over­ride the par­tial veto, mak­ing the bill law.

Additional Links

DPIC: Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment | Death Penalty Information Center

NEWS BRIEF — Illinois Marks 10th Anniversary of Death Penalty Abolition

It has now been ten years since Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill end­ing the death penal­ty in Illinois. The abo­li­tion bill, signed on March 9, 2011, was the cul­mi­na­tion of eleven years of debate after Governor George Ryan imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2000 and then issued four par­dons and 167 com­mu­ta­tions, clear­ing the state’s death row in 2003.

The Illinois mora­to­ri­um, imposed fol­low­ing a year in which U.S. exe­cu­tions peaked at 98, was a cat­a­lyst for rethink­ing the death penal­ty across the coun­try. At that time, 38 states autho­rized cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. One year after Ryan’s mass com­mu­ta­tion, the New York Court of Appeals declared its death-penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The court sub­se­quent­ly applied that deci­sion to the rest of the pris­on­ers on the state’s death row in 2007. The New York leg­is­la­ture then opt­ed not to cor­rect the con­sti­tu­tion­al error, effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing the state’s death penal­ty. Legislatures in New Jersey (2007) and New Mexico (2009) also repealed their cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws in the decade of the 2000s. 

Illinois became the first of five leg­is­la­tures to repeal their death penal­ties in the 2010s, fol­lowed by Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013), Nebraska (2015, halt­ed by ref­er­en­dum), and New Hampshire (2018, vetoed; and 2019, veto over­rid­den). State courts also declared cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Delaware (2016) and Washington (2018). In 2020, Colorado became the sixth state in a decade to abol­ish the death penal­ty. The Virginia leg­is­la­ture vot­ed in February to repeal its death penal­ty, and will become the first Southern state to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment once Governor Northam signs the abolition bill.