Illinois governor abolishes death penalty, commutes death row sentences

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has long supported capital punishment, looked drained moments after signing the historic legislation. Lawmakers sent him the measure back in January, but Quinn went through two months of intense personal deliberation before acting. He called it the most difficult decision he has made as governor.

Illinois becomes the 16th state in the U.S. without a death penalty more than a decade after former Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions out of fear that the justice system could make a deadly mistake.

Quinn also commuted the sentences of all 15 men remaining on death row. They will now serve life in prison with no hope of parole.

New Jersey eliminated its death penalty in 2007. New Mexico followed in 2009, although new Republican Gov. Susana Martinez wants to reinstate the death penalty.

In New York, a court declared the state's law unconstitutional in 2004.

The U.S. is one of the few industrialized countries that still practice capital punishment. The European Union, for instance, bans executions by any member nations.

A Gallup poll in October found that 64 percent of Americans favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 30 percent opposed it. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The high point of death penalty support, according to Gallup, was in 1994, when 80 percent were in favor.

In his comments, Gov. Quinn returned often to the fact that 20 people sent to death row had seen their cases overturned after evidence surfaced that they were innocent or had been convicted improperly.

Death penalty opponents hailed Illinois' decision and predicted it would influence other states.

Quinn's decision incensed many prosecutors and relatives of crime victims. Robert Berlin, the state's attorney in DuPage County, west of Chicago, called it a “victory for murderers.”

Quinn said capital punishment was too arbitrary. A prosecutor in one county might seek the death penalty, while another prosecutor dealing with a similar crime might not, he said. And death sentences might be imposed on minorities and poor people more often than on wealthy, white defendants.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers immediately began discussing legislation for a new, narrower death penalty. They said safeguards added to the system after Ryan cleared death row — protections negotiated in part by U.S. President Barack Obama when he was a state senator — had eliminated any real danger of executing an innocent person.

Quinn said he would oppose any attempt to reinstate a new version of the death penalty. He also promised to commute the sentence of anyone who might receive a death sentence between now and when the measure takes effect on July 1, a spokeswoman said.

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