On Saturday, then-governor of Illinois, George H. Ryan, announced his decision to grant clemency to all 167 inmates on the Illinois death row. Ryan's decision to commute the sentences came three years after he declared a moratorium on executions in response to 13 men being exonerated with DNA evidence. CNN reported that Ryan called the Illinois system "arbitrary and capricious -- and therefore immoral." Ryan ensured that men convicted by a broken and grossly unfair capital system would not be executed by it.

He did the right thing, and he should be commended for it.

Ryan was an avid supporter of capital punishment when he took office in 1999, but his faith in the system was immediately shaken by the case of Anthony Porter. Porter was sentenced to death in 1983 for the murder of two teenagers. In 1998, Porter was two days away from being executed when it was discovered that he had an IQ of 51, according to CNN. The reprieve granted enough time for Northwestern University journalism students to uncover evidence of his innocence. He was released in early 1999. The man actually responsible for the murders was sentenced in September of 1999 to only 37.5 years in prison, according to the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project.

A system that relies on college students to save innocent men from being murdered by the state can only be described as abhorrent and immoral.

After Ryan issued the moratorium on executions in early 2000, a commission to study the death penalty in Illinois was formed, according The Associated Press. CNN reported in April of 2002 that the commission recommended 85 changes to the system, including mandatory taping of confessions, uniform standards across the state and decreased reliance on jailhouse snitches. According to Ryan's speech this past weekend, the Illinois legislature had three chances to reform the system; it failed to implement even the smallest of changes.

The commission study illustrated disturbing facts about the Illinois capital punishment system. According to Ryan's speech, nearly half of Illinois' capital cases have been reversed by a new trial or new sentence; 33 men were represented at trial by an attorney who has been disbarred or suspended from practicing; law and 46 were convicted on the testimony of jailhouse snitches. More than two-thirds of the death row inmates are African-American -- 35 of who were convicted by all-white juries.

The study also found a person who commits capital murder in rural Illinois is five times more likely to have received a death sentence than if the murder had taken place in Chicago. The killer of a white victim is 3 1/2 times more likely to receive a death sentence than if the victim was black.

These geographical and racial disparities are unacceptable. If capital punishment is to be used, it must be uniform throughout the entire system.

To say that Illinois is the only state with these problems is simply wishful thinking. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, nationally, 50 percent of victims are white, but 81 percent of completed capital cases involve white victims. A recent study found that the death penalty is rarely used if the victim is Hispanic. North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and New Jersey studies have all found race to be a major determining factor in whether one receives the death penalty.

Texas has its own problems. A 2000 Texas Defender Service report found 84 capital cases in which a prosecutor or police officer deliberately presented false or misleading evidence. Like Illinois and other states, the race of the victim greatly influences punishment; while white women comprised 0.8 percent of murder victims since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 32.4 percent of those executed were for the murder of a white woman. The study found men convicted and sentenced to death despite their lawyers being clearly incompetent; one ingested cocaine before trial and consumed alcohol during court breaks; others fell asleep during trial. The report also found the case review process in Texas to be fraught with error.

Other governors must follow Ryan's lead. Not only should they declare moratoriums on executions, they should consider commuting the sentences to life in prison without possibility of parole to prevent the execution of innocent people and to ensure that no inmates lose their lives to a broken, unfair and inadequate system. There is no doubt this will be painful for victims' families; however, if states are going to go as far as taking away a life, the process has to be fair. In the meantime, states should put the enormous resources usually spent on executions to better uses. As Gov. Ryan suggested, states should "provide something for victims' families other than the hope of revenge."