Supporters of the death penalty are prepared to try and stop them. No surprises there.
Illinois hasn't had an execution for a long time, due to a suspension on executions in 2000 by the Governor of that time, George Ryan, after it was discovered that 13 men on death row in the state had been wrongly convicted. Death row was later emptied after Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 condemned inmates in Illinois. There has no been an execution since because the ban is still there. Despite this, defendants are still being tried and sentenced to death, with 15 men currently awaiting execution in Illinois who have no idea whether those sentences will be carried out, and when it might happen. That means the state is still paying the extortionate extra costs of capital trials and appeals and such for absolutely no reason at all. Just for the sake of sending men to death row rather than sentencing them to life without parole. Why?
Cost was just one of the arguments made by supporters of abolishing the death penalty, roughly 30 of whom gathered at the state Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday, lobbying lawmakers to complete work on a bill that stalled last month as it awaited a House floor vote. They said that deficit-ridden Illinois cannot afford the additional financial costs of capital trials, and that the death penalty system in place was flawed irreparably.
State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, the sponsor of the abolition measure in the Senate, believes there is enough support of the bill to get it passed this week. "It's time," he said.
Supporters of the death penalty - who include prosecutors and the relatives of murder victims - are condemning the movement towards abolition, which they believe to be a rush to judgment on the issue.
Regarding the cost issues surrounding the death penalty, Sheldon Sobol, president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association, said that it "cheapens the value of life" to make fiscal arguements. I personnaly think the death penalty itself cheapens the value of life, since any state which applies it is basically saying it's okay to take a life to stop other people from doing exactly that, but maybe that's just me. Sobol, and others, urged further review of the system before the death penalty is removed from the books. That's what they always say. And then in ten years time nothing will have been done and another fifty, hundred men could be dead and there might just be an innocent one or two or three among them. The system doesn't need reviewed; that's just talk. It needs rebuilt.
Death penalty proponents maintain that it's not clear whether the death penalty creates a financial drain on the state, as those of us who oppose the death penalty believe. They also say that some studies suggest it does deter crime. Yes, but there are plenty which don't. The majority of states which don't have the death penalty have murder rates lower than the national average.
The way it's sitting right now, this is a race against time. I'm genuinely excited and cautiously optimistic right now, despite earlier rantings. The abolition bill has already gone through the committee process in the House and is awaiting a floor vote, and the whole process will have to start over again if it isn't done before the seating of the new General Assembly on January 12th. And when this seating occurs, the Legislature will be more conservative than it currently is, with Democrats still controlling both chambers but by smaller margins. This basically means it will be more difficult to get this close again.
"We've got to get it done this week," said Ryan Keith, a lobbyist for the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Well summarized.
All I have to add is: let's hope it goes through. One more state without the death penalty would be a very welcome thing.
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