Illinois Press Release 

ILLINOIS COMMISSION ANNOUNCES NATION’S MOST COMPREHENSIVE DEATH PENALTY REVIEW; RECOMMENDS SWEEPING CHANGES TO PROTECT INNOCENT, ENSURE FAIRNESS

Majority con­cludes that Abolition of the Death Penalty May Be the Best Solution

WASHINGTON, DC — The 14-mem­ber Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment will join Republican Governor George Ryan today to release a series of 85 rec­om­men­da­tions result­ing from the nation’s most thor­ough review of the death penal­ty. The Commission’s sweep­ing reforms — which include sharply reduc­ing the num­ber of crimes eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty from 20 to five, lim­it­ing the use of jail­house infor­mants, set­ting stan­dards to ensure ade­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for defen­dants, and video­tap­ing inter­ro­ga­tions of mur­der sus­pects — aim to pro­tect inno­cent inmates from exe­cu­tion and to ensure improved fair­ness for defen­dants fac­ing capital charges.

“The Commission’s com­pre­hen­sive study and coura­geous rec­om­men­da­tions should pro­vide an incen­tive to oth­er states to sim­i­lar­ly under­take a crit­i­cal review,” said Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). ​“Other states should match Illinois’s will­ing­ness to place a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until these prob­lems are ful­ly addressed. While ques­tions of inno­cence and fair­ness remain, states should not take chances.”

Today’s report from the Commission, chaired by for­mer fed­er­al Judge Frank McGarr, for­mer U.S. Senator Paul Simon, and for­mer U.S. Attorney Thomas Sullivan, con­tains spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions con­cern­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of cas­es, eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty, review of the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty, the con­duct of cap­i­tal tri­als, and judi­cial review of cap­i­tal cas­es. The Commission not­ed that the report’s find­ings are crit­i­cal to ensure fair­ness, jus­tice and accu­ra­cy in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment tri­als, and acknowl­edged that their find­ings could lead to cost­ly but nec­es­sary changes in the state’s cur­rent poli­cies. The report not­ed, “[I]f cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is to con­tin­ue to be imposed in Illinois, achiev­ing a high­er degree of con­fi­dence in the out­comes will require a sig­nif­i­cant increase in pub­lic fund­ing at vir­tu­al­ly every lev­el, rang­ing from inves­ti­ga­tion through tri­al and its aftermath.”

Among the 85 rec­om­mend­ed reforms, the Commission called for: 

  • Videotaping of all inter­ro­ga­tions of cap­i­tal sus­pects con­duct­ed in a police facility.
  • Reducing the num­ber of crimes eli­gi­ble for a death sen­tence from 20 to five (cas­es in which the defen­dant has mur­dered two or more per­sons, where the vic­tim was either a police offi­cer or fire­fight­er, where the vic­tim was an offi­cer or inmate of a cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tion, when the mur­der was com­mit­ted to obstruct the jus­tice sys­tem, or when the vic­tim was tor­tured in the course of the murder).
  • Forbidding cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in cas­es where the con­vic­tion is based sole­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a single eyewitness.
  • Barring cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in cas­es where the defen­dant is mentally retarded.
  • Establishing a state-wide com­mis­sion — com­prised of the Attorney General, three pros­e­cu­tors, and a retired judge — to con­firm a local state’s attor­ney’s deci­sion to seek the death penalty.
  • Intensifying the scruti­ny of tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed by in-cus­tody infor­mants dur­ing a pre-tri­al hear­ing to deter­mine the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the tes­ti­mo­ny before it is received in a capital trial.
  • Requiring a tri­al judge to con­cur with a jury’s deter­mi­na­tion that a death sen­tence is appro­pri­ate; or, if not, sen­tence the defen­dant to natural life.

In January 2000, Ryan appoint­ed the 14-mem­ber Commission after Illinois had released 13 inno­cent inmates from death row in the same time that it had exe­cut­ed 12. Ryan asked the group, which includes ​“some of the best, bright­est, and most hon­or­able peo­ple in Illinois,” to close­ly exam­ine the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty in the state. His deep con­cern that flaws in Illinois’s cur­rent poli­cies would result in the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son also led him to declare a ground­break­ing mora­to­ri­um on executions.

Illinois has 173 inmates on its death row. The state has not had an exe­cu­tion since March 17, 1999, when Andrew Kokoraleis was exe­cut­ed by lethal injection. # # #