Illinois Death Row Clemency

Grojlach · 01-12-2003, 05:38 PM

Activists praise death row clemency

Jan. 12 — Human rights activists around the world on Sunday applauded the move by the governor of Illinois to spare death row prisoners from execution and urged President Bush to follow his lead by abolishing the death penalty.

ILLINOIS GOV. George Ryan cleared the state’s death row on Saturday, commuting the death sentences of the remaining 156 death-row inmates to life in prison in a move unprecedented since capital punishment was reinstated. His sweeping action, just two days before he leaves office, came a day after he pardoned four death-penalty inmates who said their confessions were tortured out of them by Chicago police.
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International, which opposes all use of the death penalty, said Ryan’s announcement offered Bush a golden opportunity.
“This is a chance for President Bush to bring the United States in line with the world trend against the death penalty,” Amnesty spokesman Kamal Samari told Reuters. “He could take a moral stand and signal that the death penalty is not the deterrent to criminals it is presented as.”

TEXAS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Bush’s home state of Texas has come under particular scrutiny for its frequent use of the death penalty. About 150 people were put to death during the six years Bush was Texas governor. He has defended the system. Samari said Ryan’s decision marked a “significant step in the struggle against the death penalty” and urged other governors in the United States still implementing execution to follow suit.
Amnesty marked world Human Rights Day last month by drawing attention to the 600 people it said had been put to death in the United States in the last decade.
Among those executed last year were a mentally ill man, convicts who had been deprived of legal rights and three under 18 at the time of their crimes — the only three child offenders known to have been judicially executed anywhere in 2002, Amnesty said.
“It is an irony that the world’s superpower is not taking a lead on moral issues,” Samari said.

GLOBAL REACTION
Amnesty’s comments were echoed across Europe and Africa.
The Council of Europe, the region’s top human rights watchdog, hailed Ryan’s courage and conviction and said the death penalty had “no place in a civilized society.”
“I sincerely hope that this is a step toward the abolition of the death penalty in the whole of the United States,” council Secretary General Walter Schwimmer said in a statement.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had written to Ryan appealing for mercy to be shown to condemned inmates, welcomed the Illinois governor’s decision.
“This is fantastic news,” said a spokeswoman for Tutu’s office in South Africa. “His feeling would be that the death penalty is vengeance, it’s not justice.”
In Kenya, sociology professor Katama Mkangi who was imprisoned without trial in the 1980s for human rights work, described the commuting of the sentences as “a breath of fresh air in a rotten system.”
“His decision is a wake-up call for the United States justice system to catch up with the rest of civilization.”
The United States and Japan are the only industrialized democracies in which the death penalty is still used.

‘DEMON OF ERROR’
Ryan said on Saturday the U.S. system of capital punishment “is haunted by the demon of error — error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die.” Ryan declared a moratorium on executions three years ago.
“Because of all these reasons, today I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates,” he said.
All but three of those sentences will go to life in prison without the possibility of parole, said the governor’s spokesman, Dennis Culloton. The three others will get shorter sentences and could eventually be released from prison, although none will be out immediately.
“He’s been talking about this for a few days, and in only a handful of cases was he considering, for a variety of reasons, not to include [them] in the commutations,” Culloton said. “Ultimately, late yesterday, he came to the decision this was the only thing to do.”
The governor sent overnight letters to the families of murder victims alerting them of the decision.Ryan chose a speech Saturday at Northwestern University to announce that he was commuting the sentences because journalism students there had investigated Illinois death row cases and helped exonerate some inmates.
Vern Fueling, whose son William was shot and killed in 1985, was outraged that the presumed killer, sentenced to death, would now be allowed to live.
“My son is in the ground for 17 years, and justice is not done,” Fueling said. “This is like a mockery.”

UNPRECEDENTED CLEMENCY
Other governors have issued similar moratoriums and commutations, but nothing on the scale of what Ryan did.
“The only other thing that would match what he’s done is in 1972, [when] the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death penalty and 600 death sentences were reduced to life with that decision,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
The most recent blanket clemency came in 1986, when the governor of New Mexico commuted the death sentences of the state’s five death row inmates.
Maryland Gov. Parris Glendenning, who last year issued a moratorium on executions in his state, has no plans to pardon or commute the sentences of any death row inmate before leaving office Wednesday, spokesman Chuck Porcari said.

‘MANIFEST INJUSTICE’
Ryan on Friday pardoned Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard, all of whom had been on death row for at least 12 years. Orange was on death row the longest, more than 17 years.
All but Howard, who was convicted of a separate crime, were released Friday.
“I have reviewed these cases, and I believe a manifest injustice has occurred,” Ryan said. “I have reviewed these cases, and I believe these men are innocent. I still have some faith in the system that eventually these men would have received justice in our courts, but the old adage is true: Justice delayed is justice denied.”
“We have evidence from four men, who did not know each other, all getting beaten and tortured and convicted on the basis of the confessions they allegedly provided,” Ryan said. “They are perfect examples of what is so terribly broken about our system.” Ryan spread the blame in an hour-long speech Friday, calling the state’s criminal justice system “inaccurate, unjust and unable to separate the innocent from the guilty, and at times very racist.”
He blamed “rogue cops,” zealous prosecutors, incompetent defense lawyers and judges who ruled on technicalities rather than on what was right. He also criticized the Legislature for failing to enact his proposals to reform the death penalty system.
Ryan announced the pardons in a speech at DePaul University, home to an anti-death penalty center founded by Andrea Lyon, a lawyer who represents Hobley.
Sources advising Ryan told NBC News that the governor was up until 1 a.m. making his decision and that calls of support included one from former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Source: MSNBC

[ 01-12-2003, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

Gammit · 01-12-2003, 07:27 PM

Wow. Back and forth I go on this issue, still not sure of where I stand. Although there is ONE thing I am sure about; we need to get rid of all the excess allowed to our prisoners (cable TV, tennis courts, etc).

madjim · 01-12-2003, 11:26 PM

Its very nice the bastard does this as he is leaving office - so the voters cant have their say. A former gov of Arizona and Clintonista Bruce Babbit did the same thing - he disapproved of the death penalty and the incoming Governor said he would "hang em high" - so he commuted all the senteces to life in Arizona.

Its nice that these men feel they know more then the juries (and judges) that sat through the actually cases at the time and found them guilty.

I also notice the families of the victims werent consulted before this was done.

The problem with the death penalty is that is isnt carried out enough, even when sentenced, and even then it takes to long.

[ 01-12-2003, 11:28 PM: Message edited by: madjim ]

Yorick · 01-12-2003, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by madjim:

The problem with the death penalty is that is isnt carried out enough, even when sentenced, and even then it takes to long.

Naaah. The prob with the death penalty is the death penalty.

*Grabs tin hat and ducks*

NiceWorg · 01-12-2003, 11:38 PM

I support this. There is no place for death penalty in civilized society, and I believe lifetime in jail can be worse than death penalty. It´s case sensitive.

HolyWarrior · 01-13-2003, 12:29 AM

I've had to put up with that sh|t Ryan for 4 years--nothin' but a goddamn crooked RINO. Now he's trying to get in good with the fookin' pinkos. There is EVERY place in the world for capital punishment--no criminal's life is worth more than the victim's.

Memnoch · 01-13-2003, 04:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by HolyWarrior:
I've had to put up with that sh|t Ryan for 4 years--nothin' but a goddamn crooked RINO. Now he's trying to get in good with the fookin' pinkos. There is EVERY place in the world for capital punishment--no criminal's life is worth more than the victim's.

Language please, mate - I know you misspelled it (actually, all three of them), but you can make your point just as well without it. We're not prudes here, but courtesy to others and all that jazz.

For my 2c, I think that it's a good thing - remember that American saying - "Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished"? What they should do is fix up the antiquated US legal system. Life in prison is just as bad as death from a punishment perspective IMO (though death is probably cheaper on the state, isn't it).

In any case, no matter what someone else has done, I don't think we as human beings have the right to sit in judgment to take the death of another. But that's just my 2c.

[ 01-13-2003, 04:06 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

madjim · 01-13-2003, 08:43 AM

Perhaps if some of you folks had known somebody that was first shot in the back, and then in the face as he already lay in the street bleeding to death you would feel differently about the death penalty. Meanwhile the murderer sits in prison writing books and earning advanced degrees at the taxpayers expense.

sign me a former police officer.

01-13-2003, 08:48 AM

What happened in Illinois was a miscarriage of justice and a crime against the murdered and their families. It was done for the express purpose of making a legacy for the outgoing republican governor and nothing more. If there were innocent individuals on death row there, the cases should have been reviewed 1 at a time and not have everyone off the hook with one wave of the magic pen!

The Hierophant · 01-13-2003, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Memnoch:
Life in prison is just as bad as death from a punishment perspective IMO (though death is probably cheaper on the state, isn't it).

Stale bread, stagnant water, a damp and filthy cell, some rags and a pair of leg-irons aint that expensive [img]smile.gif[/img]

-

And Magik - My thoughts exactly. There seems to be an unsavoury amount of politics involved in this decision. Also, their lives are individual, as are their legal cases.

[ 01-13-2003, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

01-12-2003, 05:38 PM	#1
Grojlach Zartan Join Date: May 2, 2001 Location: Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum Age: 43 Posts: 5,281	Activists praise death row clemency Jan. 12 — Human rights activists around the world on Sunday applauded the move by the governor of Illinois to spare death row prisoners from execution and urged President Bush to follow his lead by abolishing the death penalty. ILLINOIS GOV. George Ryan cleared the state’s death row on Saturday, commuting the death sentences of the remaining 156 death-row inmates to life in prison in a move unprecedented since capital punishment was reinstated. His sweeping action, just two days before he leaves office, came a day after he pardoned four death-penalty inmates who said their confessions were tortured out of them by Chicago police. The London-based human rights group Amnesty International, which opposes all use of the death penalty, said Ryan’s announcement offered Bush a golden opportunity. “This is a chance for President Bush to bring the United States in line with the world trend against the death penalty,” Amnesty spokesman Kamal Samari told Reuters. “He could take a moral stand and signal that the death penalty is not the deterrent to criminals it is presented as.” TEXAS IN THE SPOTLIGHT Bush’s home state of Texas has come under particular scrutiny for its frequent use of the death penalty. About 150 people were put to death during the six years Bush was Texas governor. He has defended the system. Samari said Ryan’s decision marked a “significant step in the struggle against the death penalty” and urged other governors in the United States still implementing execution to follow suit. Amnesty marked world Human Rights Day last month by drawing attention to the 600 people it said had been put to death in the United States in the last decade. Among those executed last year were a mentally ill man, convicts who had been deprived of legal rights and three under 18 at the time of their crimes — the only three child offenders known to have been judicially executed anywhere in 2002, Amnesty said. “It is an irony that the world’s superpower is not taking a lead on moral issues,” Samari said. GLOBAL REACTION Amnesty’s comments were echoed across Europe and Africa. The Council of Europe, the region’s top human rights watchdog, hailed Ryan’s courage and conviction and said the death penalty had “no place in a civilized society.” “I sincerely hope that this is a step toward the abolition of the death penalty in the whole of the United States,” council Secretary General Walter Schwimmer said in a statement. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had written to Ryan appealing for mercy to be shown to condemned inmates, welcomed the Illinois governor’s decision. “This is fantastic news,” said a spokeswoman for Tutu’s office in South Africa. “His feeling would be that the death penalty is vengeance, it’s not justice.” In Kenya, sociology professor Katama Mkangi who was imprisoned without trial in the 1980s for human rights work, described the commuting of the sentences as “a breath of fresh air in a rotten system.” “His decision is a wake-up call for the United States justice system to catch up with the rest of civilization.” The United States and Japan are the only industrialized democracies in which the death penalty is still used. ‘DEMON OF ERROR’ Ryan said on Saturday the U.S. system of capital punishment “is haunted by the demon of error — error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die.” Ryan declared a moratorium on executions three years ago. “Because of all these reasons, today I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates,” he said. All but three of those sentences will go to life in prison without the possibility of parole, said the governor’s spokesman, Dennis Culloton. The three others will get shorter sentences and could eventually be released from prison, although none will be out immediately. “He’s been talking about this for a few days, and in only a handful of cases was he considering, for a variety of reasons, not to include [them] in the commutations,” Culloton said. “Ultimately, late yesterday, he came to the decision this was the only thing to do.” The governor sent overnight letters to the families of murder victims alerting them of the decision.Ryan chose a speech Saturday at Northwestern University to announce that he was commuting the sentences because journalism students there had investigated Illinois death row cases and helped exonerate some inmates. Vern Fueling, whose son William was shot and killed in 1985, was outraged that the presumed killer, sentenced to death, would now be allowed to live. “My son is in the ground for 17 years, and justice is not done,” Fueling said. “This is like a mockery.” UNPRECEDENTED CLEMENCY Other governors have issued similar moratoriums and commutations, but nothing on the scale of what Ryan did. “The only other thing that would match what he’s done is in 1972, [when] the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death penalty and 600 death sentences were reduced to life with that decision,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. The most recent blanket clemency came in 1986, when the governor of New Mexico commuted the death sentences of the state’s five death row inmates. Maryland Gov. Parris Glendenning, who last year issued a moratorium on executions in his state, has no plans to pardon or commute the sentences of any death row inmate before leaving office Wednesday, spokesman Chuck Porcari said. ‘MANIFEST INJUSTICE’ Ryan on Friday pardoned Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard, all of whom had been on death row for at least 12 years. Orange was on death row the longest, more than 17 years. All but Howard, who was convicted of a separate crime, were released Friday. “I have reviewed these cases, and I believe a manifest injustice has occurred,” Ryan said. “I have reviewed these cases, and I believe these men are innocent. I still have some faith in the system that eventually these men would have received justice in our courts, but the old adage is true: Justice delayed is justice denied.” “We have evidence from four men, who did not know each other, all getting beaten and tortured and convicted on the basis of the confessions they allegedly provided,” Ryan said. “They are perfect examples of what is so terribly broken about our system.” Ryan spread the blame in an hour-long speech Friday, calling the state’s criminal justice system “inaccurate, unjust and unable to separate the innocent from the guilty, and at times very racist.” He blamed “rogue cops,” zealous prosecutors, incompetent defense lawyers and judges who ruled on technicalities rather than on what was right. He also criticized the Legislature for failing to enact his proposals to reform the death penalty system. Ryan announced the pardons in a speech at DePaul University, home to an anti-death penalty center founded by Andrea Lyon, a lawyer who represents Hobley. Sources advising Ryan told NBC News that the governor was up until 1 a.m. making his decision and that calls of support included one from former South African President Nelson Mandela. Source: MSNBC [ 01-12-2003, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ] __________________ [url]\"http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/Grobbel/\" target=\"_blank\"> [img]\"http://www.denness.net/rpi/username/Grobbel\" alt=\" - \" /></a>

01-12-2003, 07:27 PM	#2
Gammit Elminster Join Date: October 26, 2001 Location: Sterling Heights, MI, USA Age: 46 Posts: 477	Wow. Back and forth I go on this issue, still not sure of where I stand. Although there is ONE thing I am sure about; we need to get rid of all the excess allowed to our prisoners (cable TV, tennis courts, etc). __________________ IW resident science and mathematics teacher<br /><br />\"No, no, you\'re not thinking; you\'re just being logical.\"<br />-Niels Bohr

01-12-2003, 11:38 PM	#5
NiceWorg Baaz Draconian Join Date: January 15, 2002 Location: Vaasa, Finland Age: 42 Posts: 772	I support this. There is no place for death penalty in civilized society, and I believe lifetime in jail can be worse than death penalty. It´s case sensitive. __________________ Fell in love with a country girl, morning sunshine<br />She was up from a nether world, just to bust another soul<br />[url]\"http://jarkokson.suddenlaunch.com\" target=\"_blank\">Click!</a>

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01-12-2003, 11:26 PM	#3
madjim The Magister Join Date: October 9, 2001 Location: Maryland - The Old Line State Posts: 123	Its very nice the bastard does this as he is leaving office - so the voters cant have their say. A former gov of Arizona and Clintonista Bruce Babbit did the same thing - he disapproved of the death penalty and the incoming Governor said he would "hang em high" - so he commuted all the senteces to life in Arizona. Its nice that these men feel they know more then the juries (and judges) that sat through the actually cases at the time and found them guilty. I also notice the families of the victims werent consulted before this was done. The problem with the death penalty is that is isnt carried out enough, even when sentenced, and even then it takes to long. [ 01-12-2003, 11:28 PM: Message edited by: madjim ]

01-13-2003, 12:29 AM	#6
HolyWarrior User Suspended for 2 weeks by Ziroc [Dec30] Join Date: July 7, 2002 Location: IL Age: 57 Posts: 472	I've had to put up with that sh\|t Ryan for 4 years--nothin' but a goddamn crooked RINO. Now he's trying to get in good with the fookin' pinkos. There is EVERY place in the world for capital punishment--no criminal's life is worth more than the victim's.

01-13-2003, 08:43 AM	#8
madjim The Magister Join Date: October 9, 2001 Location: Maryland - The Old Line State Posts: 123	Perhaps if some of you folks had known somebody that was first shot in the back, and then in the face as he already lay in the street bleeding to death you would feel differently about the death penalty. Meanwhile the murderer sits in prison writing books and earning advanced degrees at the taxpayers expense. sign me a former police officer.

01-13-2003, 08:48 AM	#9
MagiK Guest Posts: n/a	What happened in Illinois was a miscarriage of justice and a crime against the murdered and their families. It was done for the express purpose of making a legacy for the outgoing republican governor and nothing more. If there were innocent individuals on death row there, the cases should have been reviewed 1 at a time and not have everyone off the hook with one wave of the magic pen!

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