Bill Would Restrict Ill. Commutations
House Republican leader Tom Cross' proposal, filed Wednesday,
would prevent the governor from granting clemency without a full
hearing and a report from the Illinois Prisoner Review board. It
also would require victims or their families to be notified before
any hearing.
"We're for reform," said Cross, of Oswego. "What this bill does
is provide balance to the system."
Cross' bill is a response to then-Gov. George Ryan's weekend
decision to clear death row, commuting all 167 condemned inmates'
sentences to life without parole. It was the broadest attack on the
death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court (news
- web
sites) declared it unconstitutional in 1972, forcing states to
redraw their capital punishment laws.
Ryan, who issued the blanket clemency two days before leaving
office, cited problems with trials, sentencing and the appeals
process. He said at the time that he was "not prepared to take the
risk that we may execute an innocent person."
The move won praise from defense lawyers and anti-death penalty
activists, but it has been strongly criticized by prosecutors and
families of some murder victims. On Thursday, Illinois' two U.S.
senators also spoke out against the blanket clemency.
Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (news,
bio,
voting
record) said Ryan's action Saturday usurped powers that really
should belong to the Illinois Legislature. He said the executive
pardon power should be re-examined at the state and federal level.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Ryan should have been selective
in his clemencies rather than issuing a blanket order. But Durbin
praised Ryan as a "catalyst for a national debate" on the death
penalty.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said they're considering a new tactic to
counter the commutations: reviving murder charges against the
inmates that had been dropped when they were convicted of other
crimes. They gave few details, and did not say how many inmates such
a move might affect.
"A lot of these murderers have killed more people than they have
been convicted of," said John Piland, state's attorney for Champaign
County and president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association.
The ex-death row inmates "are pretty vicious people who left a
long line of broken bodies in their wake," Piland said.
