Please provide the context and link for that "quote"....
Otherwise read this, and then attempt to give
Mr. Porter his fifteen years of his life back-
and thank Northwestern students and not the criminal
justice system for not putting an innocent man to death.
cnn.com
Illinois suspends death penalty
Governor calls for review
of 'flawed' system
January 31, 2000
Web posted at: 10:33 p.m. EST (0333 GMT)
CHICAGO (CNN) -- Illinois Gov.George Ryan on Monday
imposed a moratorium on the state's death penalty.
All lethal injections will be
postponed indefinitely pending an investigation
into why more executions have been overturned
than carried out since 1977 , when Illinois
reinstated capital punishment.
"We have now freed more people than we have put
to death under our system -- 13 people have been
exonerated and 12 have been put to death,"
Ryan told CNN. "There is a flaw in the system,
without question, and it
needs to be studied."
The Republican governor will create a special
panel to study the state's capital punishment
system in general and determine what
happened in the 13 specific cases in which men
were wrongly convicted.
Condemned prisoners to remain on death row
As the review is being carried out, Ryan, who
favors the death penalty, plans to grant stays of
scheduled executions. But condemned
prisoners will remain on death row.
"I still believe the death penalty is a proper
response to heinous crimes," Ryan said "But I
want to make sure ... that the person who is
put to death is absolutely guilty."
Ryan said he would not impose a time frame
on the length of the investigation. "I'm not going
to set a deadline," the governor said. "I think
we have to get the right people on the panel
and ... have a free and open discussion about
what has to be done here."
Death penalty opponents praised the
governor's decision and called for the
investigating panel to be a representative
sampling of the general public.
"I hope this commission will truly and
thoroughly and honestly examine the facts of
these 13 cases," Bill Ryan, chairman of the
Illinois Moratorium Project told the Chicago
Tribune. "We need an investigation of why half
the cases are overturned. We need to investigate
what's been going on."
Public 'lacks confidence' in system
Jed Stone, a Chicago defense attorney who once
headed the Illinois Coalition Against the
Death Penalty, said the public "lacks confidence
in a criminal justice system that results in
wrongful convictions of innocent people."
Gov. Ryan "is right to say let's study it,
before we ever again use it," Stone
told CNN affiliate WFLD.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Moses Harrison II
also applauded Ryan's decision.
"I'm very pleased to hear that the governor is
doing this," said Harrison, the sole member of
the high court who has said the state's death
penalty should be held unconstitutional.
One of the 13 exonerated Illinois
inmates, Anthony Porter, spent 15
years on death row and was within
two days of being executed before a
group of student journalists at
Northwestern University uncovered
evidence that was used to prove his
innocence.
Porter was released from prison last year.
The governor's decision makes Illinois
the first of the 38 states with capital punishment
to halt all executions while it
reviews its death penalty procedures. The Nebraska
legislature passed a moratorium on executions last
year but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Mike Johanns.
The Illinois House approved a bill to
impose a moratorium last year but it
failed in the Republican-controlled Senate. |
