HICAGO, Jan. 13 — The Illinois death row should be empty within a month. But prosecutors say they plan to start filling it up again immediately.

They cannot undo outgoing Gov. George Ryan's blanket commutation of 167 death sentences this weekend, but local prosecutors across the state said today that they would not let his action hinder their pursuit of capital punishment in dozens of pending cases. Even so, several acknowledged that they would probably face new challenges in convincing juries that the death penalty is just and fair — and a realistic option.

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"We're not going to let the governor's action deter us from seeking justice in appropriate cases," said John Piland, the chief prosecutor in Champaign County and the president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association.

On the other hand, Mr. Piland said, if a relative of his was killed, he would ask the prosecutor not to seek the death penalty.

"It's a cruel hoax," he explained. "There actually is a death penalty in the state of Texas, in the state of Florida, and in many other states. In Illinois we can say that we have that, but in fact I'm not sure it's fair to victims' families to suggest to them that it truly exists."

Three years after calling a moratorium on executions, Mr. Ryan, a Republican whose term ended today, last week pardoned four death-row inmates and commuted the remaining sentences to terms of life imprisonment, or less.

Outraged prosecutors said today that they would try to challenge about 20 of the cases. In those cases, inmates were in the middle of retrials, and the prosecutors argued that since they were not actively under a sentence of death, they were ineligible for commutation.

The new governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, a Democrat, plans to extend the moratorium on executions until he has more confidence in the application of the death penalty. It remains unclear, however, which if any of the 85 reforms recommended by a blue-ribbon commission — but so far rejected by the Legislature — Mr. Blagojevich might deem essential.

"This is a real strike at the criminal justice system," Richard A. Devine, the state's attorney in Cook County, said of Mr. Ryan's acts. "It really is up to all of us — the governor, the Legislature, prosecutors, anybody that's involved in it — to get together and make some hard decisions about whether we have the death penalty, and if so, what kind, what crimes, what rules, so that it becomes something in real life as opposed to just something on the books."

The joy lawyers for the death row inmates might feel was mitigated today by the task of reviewing scores of files to determine how the commutations would affect their clients' broader appeals. Those who were seeking new trials based on their clients' claims of innocence now have a lifetime sentence to fight.

"If our client didn't get a fair trial, then we're still seeking a fair trial," said Theodore A. Gottfried, the state appellate defender, whose office handled about 120 of the 167 commuted cases.

Prosecutors expressed hope that a backlash against Mr. Ryan's action might make juries more likely to impose capital punishment, and that the clean slate would render moot any concerns about people sentenced under an old system.

They acknowledged, though, that Mr. Ryan's condemnation of the state's capital system as fundamentally unfair could make some potential jurors uneasy, and that others might feel little interest in supporting executions that might not ever take place.

"People may think, `Why are we doing this when some governor's going to come along and wipe it out?' " said Joe Birkett, the state's attorney in DuPage County.

Steve Ferguson, the state's attorney in Coles County, said Governor Ryan's weekend flurry would not change his strategy in a capital trial scheduled to begin Jan. 27, in which Anthony Mertz is accused of sexually assaulting and suffocating Shannon McNamara, a fellow student at Eastern Illinois University.

The judge in that case already quashed a motion to void the death penalty because of the moratorium. If the defense raises the mass commutation as an issue, Mr. Ferguson said, "I will object, because that's irrelevant."

Meg Gorecki, the prosecutor in suburban Kane County, said she would ignore Mr. Ryan's action in four capital cases she has awaiting trial or sentencing. She also planned to dismiss it as an element in a pending decision she must make about whether to seek the death penalty in a double-homicide case.

Ms. Gorecki and a committee of 15 prosecutors in her office meet once a month to study possible capital cases, reviewing each one at least three times before taking an advisory vote on whether to pursue a death sentence. The group compares the facts of the murder with cases in other counties, examines the evidence, checks the defendant's criminal history, and makes sure the person was the primary offender, Ms. Gorecki said.

"I will continue to do exactly what I've been doing," she said. "I will not let one moment in time, which I don't believe was well reasoned and well thought out, to change a process and a system that has worked."

Despite prosecutors' resolve, the landscape for capital cases remains uncertain. Illinois death-row inmates waited an average of 13 years between sentencing and execution, and it seems unlikely that the death chamber will be used any time soon.

"Did you hear Governor Blagojevich say there's still a moratorium?" asked Bernie Murray, chief of the criminal prosecutions bureau in Cook County. "My question is, for who?"