March 9, 2011
When I heard the news about Governor Quinn signing legislation to repeal the death penalty in Illinois today, I remembered a speech given by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to the Minnesota Women Lawyers Association in 2001. Justice O'Connor, by no means a moral opponent of capital punishment, said: "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed."
Justice O'Connor told her audience in Minnesota, which does not have the death penalty: ''You must breathe a big sigh of relief every day.''
Justice O'Connor knew what she was talking about. At that time, 90 people had been released from death row nationally because of innocence. Today, that number stands at 138 people since 1973, in 26 states.
As a Supreme Court Justice, literally a member of the Court of last resort, she had seen more than her share of cases of prisoners raising harrowing claims of innocence. She had become all too aware of how the system can break down, particularly when the lawyers the system depends on to ensure fairness fail to do their jobs: fail to investigate a case or present to the jury the crucial facts that it would enable it to make a fair decision between a long prison sentence and death.
And then there were the notorious accounts of drunk or sleeping lawyers, those who used racial epithets to describe their clients in court, prosecutors who studied how to exclude women and people of color from juries, hid evidence of innocence from defendants and from the court. These stories were shocking, but the frequency with which they arose was equally chilling.
Illinois is no stranger to problems in the system. When Governor Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in Illinois exactly 11 years ago, the state had in some cases come within hours of executing 13 innocent men.
Illinois did the responsible thing. They stopped the machine. They examined the engine, they inquired about the smoke. A blue ribbon, bipartisan commission reviewed Illinois's capital punishment system from top to bottom and identified areas of concern. They made over 80 recommendations for changes in the law and policy and even then said that while these dramatic changes might make the system safer--so as not to execute an innocent person--they could not guarantee that the worst would not happen.
The legislature enacted some, but not all, of the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment Recommendations. The system churned on, imposing death sentences but with no real enthusiasm and then no executions.
In short, it wasn't working. Without being willing or able, because of the enormous cost required, to invest in all of the assurances that the Commission had recommended, there would be no certainty that the unthinkable could not still be possible.
And so today, Illinois took the only reasonable step: walking away from a system too few people had confidence in, with too little return for the investment. They have now made space for a real discussion about what investments in money and energy make sense and really work to keep communities safe and enhance their response to the families who have suffered the unfathomable loss of a loved one to murder.
I think I can hear judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors and potential jurors--indeed all citizens of Illinois--enjoying the peace of knowing that an innocent person will not be sentenced to death or executed on their watch. No need to wait--we can exhale.
Cathleen Falsani: Jury Out On Religion and the Death Penalty
You, and the organization you head, deserve profound respect and gratitude for this amazing accomplishment. I have vehemently opposed the death penalty since I was a child, but besides talking, writing privately and signing online petitions have done little, am ashamed to report. Am in awe of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's relentless activity that followed the bill through the Illinois legislature hour-by-hour and made Gov. Quinn's signature possible.
Profound thanks.