Ant this, too, we knew was coming.
CNN.com - Illinois lawmaker acts to head off future commutations - Jan. 17, 2003: An Illinois legislator said Thursday he is pushing a bill that would stop future governors from following George Ryan's lead and emptying the state's death row. House Republican leader Tom Cross' proposal, filed Wednesday, would prevent the governor from granting clemency without a full hearing and a report from the Illinois Prisoner Review board. It also would require victims or their families to be notified before any hearing.
(Note: the writer of the AP feed appears to misunderstand or be unclear about one of the provisions of the bill; it doesn't require the governor to wait for the Prisoner Review Board's report, but to wait for the report to be made public. Said provision may be in conflict with the Illinois State Constitution, according to the Chicago Tribune. (Registration required.))
The proposed bill would have required Ryan to start earlier, although it would not necessarily have stopped the process. He did hold hearings -- the law would need to define "full hearing" with unusual precision -- and he did get a report from the Prisoner Review Board, although it was not made public. Families were also notified before the hearings, and he heard their testimony. This is political grandstanding, nothing more, and nothing less. In any event, no governor with a brain in their head would sign any such bill limiting the one absolute power that they actually have.
It's going to be interesting to see if prosecutors really do try to revive older charges. Depending on how exactly they approach this, it's quite likely that many of the inmates will wind up having additional claims of actual innocence making it into the record. In any event, again, this is political grandstanding. The inmates were, leave us not forget, sentenced to death. There was no reason at the time for prosecutors to have foregone going for any and all available death sentences. How exactly could that bargain work? "Well, we can charge you with two or three capital crimes, but if you plead guilty and let us sentence you to death, we'll only go for one." Of the people whose sentences were commuted and who remain in prison, only one -- ONE -- had a sentence commuted to less than natural life, and that was because the person who had been charged with him for the exact same crime lucked out in getting a judge who apparently opposed the death penalty and sentenced his coconspirator to 40 years. What is the point of spending the public's funds to pursue people who will never leave prison? The prosecutors are acting as if these people are going out and walking the street any day now, despite being found guilty of committing these crimes. They're trying to take advantage of any sentiment against this result, trying to scare the public, and being thoroughly irresponsible in doing so.
The other part of the counter-reaction also seems to be underway:
House bill would end executions (Chicago Sun Times, January 16, 2003): A move to abolish the death penalty picked up steam in the General Assembly on Thursday with a top House Democrat announcing legislation to end executions and Senate President Emil Jones embracing the concept. Rep. Arthur Turner (D-Chicago), the third-ranking House Democrat, said he has introduced a bill that would prohibit the death penalty, launching what could become one of the spring session's most contentious debates. (NOTE: Sun Times articles are on their site for only a week.)
Given the political grandstanding so far, it's unlikely that this bill would go anywhere. But assuming that it passes both houses on a party-line vote (and I don't expect that it would), it would be interesting to see if the governor would sign it. Doing so would likely be political suicide, and the man has shown little sign of political courage thus far. (A governor with any courage and a state that's $5 billion in the hole would not have taken tax increases off the agenda, as this one has done.)
Posted by iain at January 17, 2003 01:41 PMComments
