The fate of Illinois's costly, flawed and entirely pointless death penalty now rests solely in the hands of Governor Pat Quinn after the Senate approved legislation to abolish it on Tuesday.
Yesterday the Governor said that he would "follow my conscience" in deciding whether to sign the bill to abolish it. He declined to give a firm answer on what he plans to do - however, he did point out the history of "serious problems" which Illinois has had with the death penalty. Quinn said such problems could have ended in "terrible tragedies" had wrongfully condemned inmates not been exonerated. It's rare for politicians to actually admit mistakes so this looks promising.
In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley is not a happy bunny with the way things are going down. He said certain crimes "should be handled" by the death penalty. Daley believed that Illinois doesn't need to scrap the death penalty - they just need to get rid of all those nasty little "imperfections" in the law which send innocent people to their deaths. This can apparently be done by increasing the use of DNA testing. Yes, that would help, but simple human error will always exist. Jailhouse snitches will always make stuff up under oath to get lighter sentences, police will always use less than ethical tactics to get confessions, eye-witnesses will always be wrong, jilted exes will always lie... and so on. How do we get rid of these "imperfections", huh? We don't. We simply can't.
But the mayor said he was trying not to influence Quinn's decision. Yeah, I'm sure. "It's up to him," Daley said.
Quinn's hesitation to decide is causing disruption to capital murder trials in Illinois.
Take your time Governor... Just make the right choice! And by take your time, I mean soon please!
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I'm not trying to say that DNA testing does not work if that's what you thought I meant. But not all convictions are based on DNA tests alone, and some convictions aren't even based on DNA at all. Mistakes will always happen because no legal system can ever be perfect. Innocent men are still turning up on death row in the age of DNA testing. I don't think we should wager lives on the presumption that mistkaes won't be made, whether in the lab or out with.
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Thanks for reading.