WASHINGTON - Supporters and foes of the death penalty in the
United States are mobilising for their greatest confrontation in
three decades, following the historic move by Illinois' outgoing
Governor, George Ryan, to clear the state's death row of its 167
inmates.
The weekend announcement by Ryan, who left office yesterday, is
the biggest challenge to the death penalty since the Supreme Court
struck down every state law on the subject in 1972. In addition to
the 156 people on Illinois' death row, 11 others sentenced to death
but awaiting hearings will have their sentences commuted to life
imprisonment without parole.
In the past few years, as the minority opposing capital
punishment has grown, the Supreme Court has nibbled at the problem,
outlawing the execution of the mentally ill and addressing the
execution of people who were minors when they committed their
crimes.
Not in 30 years, though, has it ruled on the constitutionality of
capital punishment, and a majority of justices have either supported
it, or held that it was a matter for individual states to decide.
Now one state governor has taken matters into his own hands, on
the basis of the most comprehensive state study of capital
punishment in 30 years - which showed that while Illinois had
executed 12 people since executions returned to the US in 1976, 13
people had been exonerated.
Quoting the late Justice Harry Blackmun - like Ryan a man who had
been a supporter of capital punishment earlier in his career - the
governor declared that "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery
of death."
He identified two massive problems: the possibility that an
innocent man would die, and the impossibility of justly deciding
which convicted murderers should die. He spoke of the "demon of
error" that haunted the system: "error in determining guilt, and
error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die".
But until Sunday the state had the eighth largest death row in
the country. The commutations are irreversible and that fact alone
implies that the total US death row population, of 3697 at the end
of last year, will decline significantly for the first time in a
quarter century.
"This means that you have to start all over again with the death
penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty
Information Centre, a leading advocate of abolishing capital
punishment.
"How many times do we have to go through a revolution like this
before we conclude humans cannot make these judgments?"
But as Dieter and others urged an immediate nationwide moratorium
on executions, the pro-death penalty camp was up in arms.
Richard Devine, state attorney for Illinois Cook County (which
covers Chicago), accused Ryan of "tremendously undermining the
system of criminal justice". Many victims' groups were also
outraged.
Critics claim the governor has acted cynically to deflect
attention from a graft and ethics scandal in which he is embroiled.
Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty, said
Ryan's moved offered his fellow Republican President George W. Bush
a golden opportunity.
"This is a chance for President Bush to bring the US in line with
the world trend against the death penalty," Amnesty spokesman Kamal
Samari said. "He could take a moral stand and signal that the death
penalty is not the deterrent to criminals it is presented as."
Mexican President Vicente Fox called Ryan yesterday to praise him
for his step, which affected three Mexicans. Mexico does not have
the death penalty and has clashed with the US in connection with
Mexicans sentenced to death there.
The Council of Europe, the region's top human rights watchdog,
hailed Ryan's courage and conviction and said the death penalty had
"no place in a civilised society".
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had
written to Ryan appealing for mercy to be shown to condemned
inmates, welcomed the governor's decision.
"This is fantastic news," said a spokeswoman for Tutu's office in
South Africa.
While opinion polls indicate most Americans still favour capital
punishment, support has been eroding and the country's largest
lawyers' organisation, the American Bar Association, has called for
a national moratorium.
But even if Bush were to support a halt to executions, it would
not necessarily affect the states. Each governor has jurisdiction
over laws regarding state death penalty cases.
- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS
