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Spare Death Row Lives, Say
Experts
Dec
30, 2002 1:11 pm US/Central
(CBS) (CHICAGO)
Hundreds of legal scholars are ready to side with the
controversial actions of one governor in the death penalty debate.
Four hundred legal experts believe Illinois Governor George
Ryan should grant blanket commutations for some of his state's death
row inmates. In a letter sent Monday, the legal scholars advise the
governor to "follow his conscience," reports CBS News Correspondent
Peter Maer.
Ryan stopped executions in Illinois three years
ago after courts found 13 inmates were wrongly convicted. The
governor is reviewing 140 clemency requests. Ryan will decide before
leaving office in two weeks.
The state resumed capital
punishment in 1977. About 160 inmates are on death row.
In
the letter, the legal scholars take exception to some death penalty
supporters' view that Ryan should only consider clemency on a
case-by-case basis.
"We feel compelled to share with you our
considered judgment that, in our country, the power of executive
clemency is not so limited," the letter said. "To the contrary,
where circumstances warrant, executive clemency should be and has in
fact been used as a means to correct systemic injustice."
The governor has described blanket commutation of death
sentences to life without parole as being "on the back burner," but
he will consider the professors' letter, spokesman Dennis Culloton
said.
Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine, one of
those most publicly opposed to a blanket clemency, says the
professors have missed the point.
"We have never disputed
that the governor has unlimited powers to grant clemency, but we
believe that granting blanket clemency would be an abuse of that
power," said Devine's spokeswoman, Marcy Jensen.
The
professors' letter doesn't take a position on whether the governor
should commute all death row inmates' sentences.
New York
University law professor Anthony Amsterdam said the professors are
sending the letter to Ryan "to make him feel that he can consult his
own conscience and decide what he thinks is right."
Amsterdam, who organized the letter-signing campaign, said
the power of clemency is broad enough "to allow the governor to use
his own sense of justice and right in issuing commutations."
New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya commuted the sentences of all
his state's death row inmates in 1986. Arkansas Gov. Winthrop
Rockefeller did the same thing in 1970.
(© 2002 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights
Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,
or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this
report.)
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