Illinois

government:

state of civil and political rights:

constitution:

legal system:

legislative system:

judicial system:

religion:

death row: 15 (as of January 1, 2009)

year of last executions: 0-0-0

death sentences: 0

executions: 0

international treaties on human rights and the death penalty:

situation:
The method of execution is injection. The sentence is determined by a jury. The death row is located at Pontiac and Menard (Women: Dwight). As for the clemency process, the Governor has authority to grant clemency with nonbinding advice of Board of Pardons and Paroles. On January 31, 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in his state, pending an investigation into the state's capital punishment system. Ryan appointed a 14-member study commission, including former US Sen. Paul Simon, Scott Turow, former US District Judge Frank H. McGarr, former US Attorney Thomas Sullivan, to study the state's capital punishment system in conjunction with the moratorium.
The state has executed 12 inmates in the same time that 13 other inmates were freed because they were later found to be innocent. Governor Ryan's moratorium received praise from President Clinton, who urged other state governors to examine their death penalty systems.
The Commission ended its work in April 2002 by compiling a report containing 85 indispensable proposals for reform.
The Commission unanimously agreed that the state of Illinois had excessively resorted to the death penalty and that in order to continue its application it would have to increase defence funds and introduce the recommended 85 proposals.
Governor Ryan put to the Senate the 85 proposals made by the Commission but failed to attain approval.
On 10 January 2003, as the last act of his mandate, Governor Ryan commuted 167 death penalties into life imprisonment and exonerated four convicts of whose innocence he was personally convinced, effectively clearing death row in the state.
On 24 April 2003, his successor, the Democrat Rod Blagojevich, decided to continue observing the moratorium stating that the conditions weren't present to guarantee a judicial system without errors.

news

NEWS

USA - Illinois. The House Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 to abolish the death penalty

01 December 2010

USA - Illinois. The House Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 to abolish the death penalty

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USA - Illinois. Majority of Voters Supports Alternatives to the Death Penalty

26 July 2010

USA - Illinois. Majority of Voters Supports Alternatives to the Death Penalty

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USA - Illinois. A DuPage County jury sentenced Edward Tenney to death.

15 April 2010

USA - Illinois. A DuPage County jury sentenced Edward Tenney to death.

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USA - Illinois. Imprisoned ex-Ill. Gov. Ryan again nominated for Nobel

29 January 2010

USA - Illinois. Imprisoned ex-Ill. Gov. Ryan again nominated for Nobel

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01 December 2010 :

The House Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 to abolish the death penalty in Illinois. The legislation (SB 3539) is sponsored by Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood. The state hasn't executed people since former Gov. George Ryan halted executions in 2000. Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Gov. Pat Quinn have continued the unofficial moratorium on executions. A lot of Illinoisans apparently believe that was the end of it. Only 39 % of voters responding to a recent poll answered (correctly) that Illinois still has the death penalty. The others said it does not (33 %) or that they didn’t know (28 %).

(source: Capitolfax.com, Bloomington Pantagraph, 30/11/2010)

26 July 2010 :

Majority of Illinois Voters Supports Alternatives to the Death Penalty. A recent poll conducted by Lake Research Partners found that a majority of Illinois registered voters prefer an alternative sentence to the death penalty for those who commit murder. The pollsters surveyed voters in April, and found that 43% believed that the penalty for murder should be life with no possibility of parole and a requirement to make restitution to the victim’s family. Another 18% felt that the penalty for murder should be life in prison with no possibility of parole. Only 32% responded that the penalty for murder should be death. The poll also found only 39% of registered voters even know that Illinois has the death penalty. Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, attributed this to a declining murder rate and a declining use of the death penalty in the state. There has not been an execution in Illinois since 2000, when then Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in the state.

(sources: Associated Press, 06/07/2010)

15 April 2010 :

A DuPage County jury sentenced Edward Tenney to death. Tenney, 50, white, was convicted Feb. 24 of the April 16, 1992, murder and armed robbery of Jerry Weber, 24, white. Tenney, a career criminal already serving two life sentences for two other murders.

(sources: The Huffington Post, 09/03/2010)

29 January 2010 :

Imprisoned ex-Ill. Gov. Ryan again nominated for Nobel. In what has become an annual event, imprisoned former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who also is Honorary President of Hands off Cain, has once again been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for imposing a death-penalty moratorium in Illinois that still stands today. A Nobel nomination means that someone eligible to ask the Nobel committee to take a look has done so. That group includes international law professors. One of them, Francis Boyle at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, an anti-death-penalty activist, has nominated Ryan several times now. In an email today announcing his latest nomination of Ryan, Boyle cited Ryan's "courageous opposition to the death penalty," and his 2000 order to halt all executions in Illinois. Ryan initially gave that order as a temporary one, after it was revealed that 13 people had been wrongly sent to the state's death row. Ryan — a long-time death-penalty advocate — ultimately said he didn't believe there was any way the state could adequately ensure that no innocent person is put to death. He left his moratorium in place upon leaving office in 2003. It has remained in force since then. The anti-death-penalty lobby says, accurately, that Ryan's actions sparked a revival of the national debate over executions, a debate that continues today. If capital punishment ultimately falls out of use in the U.S., there’s little doubt that Ryan’s role will be credited as key. But others point out that Ryan's sudden conversion from gung-ho executioner to dovish anti-execution crusader came right around the time the Feds were lowering the boom on him for bribery, fraud and other crimes of corruption (for which he is currently serving a six-year sentence).

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 06/01/2010)

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