• Wrongful Convictions Prompt More Jurisdictions to Videotape Interrogations The wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Eddie Joe Lloyd, a men­tal­ly ill man who was exon­er­at­ed in 2002 after serv­ing 17 years in prison for a rape and mur­der he did not com­mit, has prompt­ed Detroit to join a grow­ing list of juris­dic­tions that now require video­taped inter­ro­ga­tions of sus­pects. A decade ago, only Minnesota and Alaska required police to video­tape inter­ro­ga­tions, but today, at least 450 police depart­ments across the coun­try have imple­ment­ed the prac­tice in an effort to pre­vent coerced con­fes­sions. ​“When you put it all on video­tape, it gives you no lee­way. You can watch it. I can watch it. The jury can watch it. I always say it’s like hav­ing an instant replay so you know whether the guy went out of bounds in a foot­ball game or whether the ten­nis ball went out of the court,” said Thomas P. Sullivan, a for­mer U.S. Attorney in Chicago who has stud­ied inter­ro­ga­tion pro­ce­dures. In 1984, Lloyd was a patient at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute. Suffering from delu­sions that he had a spe­cial abil­i­ty to solve crimes, Lloyd sent a let­ter to police say­ing he want­ed to help in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the killing of 16-yaer-old Michelle Jackson. The let­ter was sim­i­lar to oth­er ones Lloyd had sent to police. Attorneys for Lloyd said that when police inter­roga­tors came to the hos­pi­tal to ques­tion their client about the let­ter, they fed him details of the crime and con­vinced him that con­fess­ing to the mur­der would help them find the real killer. DNA evi­dence lat­er exon­er­at­ed Lloyd, and prompt­ed Detroit to rethink its pol­i­cy on video­tap­ing inter­ro­ga­tions. Barry C. Scheck, a lawyer who helped nego­ti­ate the new pol­i­cy with the city on behalf of Lloyd’s fam­i­ly, not­ed, ​“Detroit in this case has real sym­bol­ism to it. It sends a mes­sage to oth­er police chiefs that even in the most dif­fi­cult depart­ments, this is some­thing you can get done. That’s the sig­nif­i­cance of this.” Lloyd died in 2004, two years after he was released from prison. (New York Times, April 11, 2006). See Innocence.
  • Death Penalty Reforms Become Law in Illinois By a vote of 115 – 0, mem­bers of the Illinois House approved a series of reforms to the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The leg­isla­tive pack­age gives the Illinois Supreme Court greater pow­er to throw out unjust ver­dicts, gives defen­dants more access to evi­dence, and bars the death penal­ty in cas­es based on a sin­gle wit­ness. The reforms are among the 80 rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, formed in 2000 by for­mer Governor George Ryan to address wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the state’s bro­ken death penal­ty sys­tem. The unan­i­mous vote, an over­ride of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ear­li­er veto of the reform pack­age, makes the leg­is­la­tion into law imme­di­ate­ly because the Illinois Senate over­rode the Governor’s veto ear­li­er this month. Gov. Blagojevich sup­port­ed most of the reforms but had vetoed one sec­tion. He has stat­ed that he will main­tain the state’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until he sees how the reforms work. (Washington Post, November 20, 2003). Read a sum­ma­ry of the new law. See Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, and Innocence.
  • Passed a bill in May, 2003, exempt­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed from the death penal­ty. Retardation is described as ​“sig­nif­i­cant deficits in adap­tive behav­ior,” and will be deter­mined before the tri­al. Other bills includ­ed leg­is­la­tion allow­ing judges to rule out the death penal­ty in cas­es that rest larg­ley on a sin­gle eye­wit­ness or infor­mant, allow­ing the state Supreme Court to over­turn death sen­tences it deems ​“find­a­men­tal­ly unjust,” and requir­ing juries to con­sid­er more mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors before impos­ing a sen­tence of death. (Associated Press, July 29, 2003) Although the gov­er­nor approved these changes, he has not yet signed the bill into law because of his dis­agree­ment with one part of the bill. For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing this leg­is­la­tion, Click Here.
  • Governor Signs Bill Removing Doctors Governor Rod Blagojevich on Thursday signed into law a bill remov­ing doc­tors from the exe­cu­tion process entire­ly. Previously, Illinois law required a doc­tor to be present to pro­nounce an inmate deceased fol­low­ing exe­cu­tion. The bil­l’s spon­sor, Senator John Cullerton of Chicago, said that physi­cians ​“felt this was a con­flict of their Hippocratic Oath. It was total­ly unnec­es­sary to have a physi­cian in that posi­tion … a coro­ner could eas­i­ly deter­mine the cause of death.” (Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2003)
  • Illinois Legislators Approve Sweeping Death Penalty Reforms Illinois law­mak­ers recent­ly approved sweep­ing death penal­ty reforms and have sent the leg­isla­tive pack­age to Governor Rod Blagojevich for sig­na­ture into law. The reforms are expect­ed to trans­form the inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of every death-eli­gi­ble crime in Illinois. Based on rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, the bill would change police pro­ce­dures regard­ing dis­clo­sure of evi­dence, set up a sys­tem to get rid of police offi­cers who lie, lim­it the num­ber of crimes that could result in a death sen­tence, improve police line-up pro­ce­dures, and cre­ate pre­tri­al hear­ings to help deter­mine the cred­i­bil­i­ty of jail­house infor­mants. In addi­tion, the bill cre­ates a pre­sump­tion that any­one with an IQ less than 75 is men­tal­ly retard­ed and is not eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, and it estab­lish­es a ​“fun­da­men­tal jus­tice” pro­vi­sion that empow­ers the Illinois Supreme Court to over­turn a death sen­tence if jus­tices thought it was not called for in a par­tic­u­lar case. Although Blagojevich is expect­ed to sign the leg­is­la­tion, he not­ed that he feels it does not go far enough to pro­tect against the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. Blagojevich con­tin­ues to sup­port the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Illinois. (Chicago Tribune, May 30, 2003). See Innocence and Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment.
  • Governor to Sign Illinois Bill Requiring Taping of Interrogations In a vote that will dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the way mur­der inves­ti­ga­tions are con­duct­ed, the Illinois House has over­whelm­ing­ly approved leg­is­la­tion requir­ing audio-or video­tap­ing of most homi­cide-relat­ed inter­ro­ga­tions and con­fes­sions. The bill, which unan­i­mous­ly passed the Senate last month, now goes to Governor Rod Blagojevich for sig­na­ture into law. The Governor has vowed to sign the leg­is­la­tion. Attorney Thomas Sullivan, who co-chaired the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment that made more than 80 reform rec­om­men­da­tions after a thor­ough review of the state’s death penal­ty, not­ed, ​“It is extreme­ly sig­nif­i­cant in that it will be a major step for­ward for law enforce­ment and for the entire crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Illinois.” (Chicago Tribune, May 10, 2003) See Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment.
  • Illinois Governor to Maintain Moratorium on Executions Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has announced that he will con­tin­ue the state’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, stat­ing: ​“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.” Illinois law­mak­ers are cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion to require the of tap­ing police inter­ro­ga­tions, to improve access to DNA analy­sis, and to lim­it the crimes eli­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. (Associated Press, April 24, 2003) See Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment.
  • Governor Ryan vetoed leg­is­la­tion that would have expand­ed the death penal­ty to be used against gang mem­bers who mur­der. The leg­is­la­tion would have made any­one who com­mits mur­der auto­mat­i­cal­ly eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty if the killing was ​“in fur­ther­ance” of a gang. In reject­ing the bill, Ryan stat­ed that the leg­is­la­tion was vague, dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly tar­get­ed minori­ties, dupli­cat­ed exist­ing tough-on-gang laws, and could wrong­ly sub­ject some­one to an irre­versible fate if they were mis­tak­en­ly con­vict­ed. (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/​18/​01)