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100
Years Apart, Two Governors Dared to Attack Death
Penalty
Commentary
Michael
A. Kroll,
Pacific News Service,
Jan 14, 2003
To find the type of courage shown by Illinois Gov.
George Ryan's recent death-penalty ruling, PNS contributor
Michael Kroll goes back more than a century, to another
Illinois governor who risked his career in a capital case to
uphold principle.
Whatever you think about the
death penalty, you've got to stand in awe of Illinois Gov.
George Ryan -- a politician with the courage of his unpopular
convictions.
As the last official act of his Republican
administration, Ryan granted commutations to all 167 people
condemned to death in his state and awaiting execution. (He
had, the day before, granted full pardons to four other
condemned prisoners whom he had determined to be innocent
victims of police misconduct.)
The reasons Ryan gave
for this blanket clemency poison every death penalty scheme in
the country, from Virginia and Alabama to California and
Texas. They include:
danger of convicting and executing the innocent
arbitrariness of a system that leads to the death sentence
for some, but lesser prison sentences for others convicted of
similar, or even worse, crimes
geographic disparity that makes it hugely more likely to
be sentenced to death if you commit your crime in rural areas
rather than cities
generally poor quality of lawyering in the rarified
practice of capital litigation
the practice of obtaining convictions based on testimony
from jailhouse informants who exchange their testimony for
favors
racism that makes the murder of whites far more likely to
result in a death sentence than the murder of blacks or other
racial minorities
frequency of childhood abuse, mental retardation and
mental illness among those we consign to the final
solution
Of course, every governor of a death penalty state
will now say that Illinois is unique in the deficiencies of
its criminal justice system. For example, after Ryan's
bombshell, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gray Davis
described the largest death row in the country by asserting:
"We have a totally different system." The difference is not in
the governors' respective systems, but in their respective
courage.
As a Californian, I cannot conceive of our
governor risking his political capital for principle as Ryan
did. "I realize it will draw ridicule, scorn and anger from
many who oppose this decision," Ryan stated, but "even if the
exercise of my power becomes my burden, I will bear it... I
cannot shrink from the obligations to justice and fairness
that it demands."
Ryan has been compared to former
California Gov. Pat Brown, who commuted the sentences of 23
condemned men (and allowed 36 others to go to the gas chamber)
during his two-term tenure. Ryan acknowledged that Brown's
book, "Public Justice, Private Mercy: A Governor's Education
on Death Row," contributed to his controversial decision. But
there is a far more compelling comparison -- one from Ryan's
own state.
Whether by coincidence or through some
mysterious quality inherent in a state that also gave us
Abraham Lincoln, another Illinois governor exhibited courage
more than 100 years ago comparable to Ryan's.
On May 3,
1886, a labor demonstration at the McCormick Harvester plant
in Chicago led to the police shooting a demonstrator to death.
An angry crowd gathered the next day to protest the killing.
When the police attempted to break it up, someone -- never
identified -- threw a bomb that killed eight police officers.
The public outcry against the "anarchists" and "terrorists"
was predictably ferocious.
With intense pressure to
"get the radicals," eight men were eventually charged with
murder. Seven of them were sentenced to death, despite the
absence of any evidence linking them to the crime. Four were
hanged and one committed suicide.
Six years later a
German immigrant, John Peter Altgeld, was elected governor of
Illinois. Immediately, he set out to investigate the
reliability of the convictions and executions, over the loud
objections of his political advisors, to whom he said, "By
God, if I decide that they are innocent, I will pardon them if
I never hold office another day!" On June 26, 1893, just a
year after assuming office, Gov. Altgeld pardoned the three
surviving Haymarket prisoners.
Like the man who
succeeded him to the Illinois statehouse 106 years later,
Altgeld was subjected to a firestorm of angry denunciations by
the press, politicians and the public. Foreshadowing the
anti-immigrant hysteria of our own day, the Chicago Tribune
wrote that Altgeld had not "a drop of true American blood in
his veins. He does not reason like an American, does not feel
like one, and consequently does not behave like one." (In
1946, Howard Fast, soon to fall victim to McCarthyism's
blacklist, wrote a biography of Altgeld titled, "The
American.")
For the next three years, Altgeld was
predictably vilified as a dangerous foreigner and radical. In
1896, he was defeated in his bid for a second term. Gov. Ryan
understood all of this when he pardoned four innocent men from
death row and commuted the sentences of the remaining 167. As
if addressing his fellow governors, Ryan's clemency message
stated: "It is easier and more comfortable for politicians to
be tough on crime and support the death penalty. It wins
votes. But when it comes to admitting that we have a problem,
most run for cover."
Gov. Ryan will now take his place
of honor alongside Gov. Altgeld in the annals of political
courage. Let us hope it will not take another century before
another politician acts courageously to uphold principle.
Kroll (mkmitigates@hotmail.com) works with juvenile
hall writers for The Beat Within, a project of Pacific News
Service. He is the founding director of the Death Penalty
Information Center in Washington, D.C.
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User
comments
| Tad
Lindzey |
Jan
16, 2003 10:15:13 |
| Great history! Hopefully others will fall in the
footsteps of Gov. Ryan. One day people will realize that
killing people to show that killing people does not make
sense! Keep up the great work Mr. Kroll!
|
| Dennie Burgess |
Jan
14, 2003 21:50:26 |
| A great article, Michael! I read about the
Haymarket riots back in school, but never realized the
death penalty connection. Thanks for enlightening me!
Hopefully Gov. Ryan's decision is a turning point in the
history of the death penalty in this country.
|
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