ILLINOIS (USA): HOUSE VOTED TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

January 6, 2011: Illinois House voted to abolish the death penalty. Late Thursday afternoon, the House voted 59-58 against SB3539, a bill to repeal the death penalty and use the money saved to assist victims' families and improve law enforcement, 1 vote short of passing the proposal. 1 representative, Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines) did not vote at the time. But the chief sponsor, Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) used a parliamentary maneuver to pull the bill from the House floor to allow for a second vote and less than two hours later, the House approved the measure 60-54.
The measure now goes to the Senate for a vote. If the bill is approved in the state senate it still must go to Governor Pat Quinn, who has said he continues to favor the death penalty for the worst crimes, according to local media reports. During a lengthy debate on the House floor, supporters said the death penalty needs to be abolished because too many innocent people have been sent to death row. Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago), who said she has long been a staunch supporter of capital punishment, said she believes the death penalty should end because courts cannot correct a mistake if an innocent person is put to death. "I could administer the death penalty myself to a cop killer or a baby killer without remorse," Mendoza said. "But this debate for me is no longer about whether guilty killers deserve to die for their crimes. They do deserve to die." However, Mendoza added that, "we must accept the possibility of executing an innocent person and I'm not okay with that. None of us should be okay with that. … I can no longer stomach the idea of executing a potentially innocent person in order to make sure the guilty pay for their crimes." Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs), a former prosecutor, said he believes death penalty reforms have worked to ensure a fair trial in capital cases. "I am confident that these individuals were given more than due process. They were given super-process," Durkin said. "We need to let this process work its way through the course."
But supporters of repealing capital punishment said that numerous studies have showed that the death penalty is applied randomly across the state and that minorities and poor defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites and the affluent. "The decision to have the death penalty in one case and not another, that is a random decision in the state of Illinois," House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago) said. "That is no way to run a criminal justice system." Currie also noted that studies have shown that the death penalty has not served as a deterrent to violent crime.
Former Gov. George Ryan instituted a moratorium on executions in Illinois in 2000 after 13 Death Row inmates were exonerated and no death row inmates have been executed since then. Ryan is serving a 6-1/2 year sentence in federal prison for corruption charges and is trying to get an early release or temporary furlough in order to visit his wife, Lura Lynn Ryan, who has been hospitalized with a severe infection. Doctors have said she likely has, at best, 2 weeks to live. (Source: CBS News, 06/01/2011)