3/9/11
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50966.html
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a death penalty ban into law on Wednesday, making Illinois the 16th state to end capital punishment.
Quinn also commuted the sentences of the 15 inmates on death row in the state. Instead, they will serve life in prison without parole. The ban on executions will take effect July 1.
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history,” the Democratic governor said after he signed the bill. “I think it’s the right and just thing to abolish the death penalty.”
Illinois last performed an execution in 1999. In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after a series of death row inmates were exonerated.
State legislators voted in January to end executions in Illinois. Faced with what he called the “most difficult decision” he’s had to make as governor, Quinn spent two months weighing whether to sign the bill.
“For me, this was a difficult decision, quite literally the choice between life and death,” Quinn wrote in his signing statement. “This was not a decision to be made lightly or a decision that I came to without deep personal reflection.”
State Attorney General Lisa Madigan and several county prosecutors had asked Quinn to veto the bill, saying that videotaped interrogations and advancements in DNA technology had made it possible to guard against the wrongful executions of innocent people. Taped interrogations were the result of a bill drafted by President Barack Obama when he was in the state Senate.
“You know my position, I’ve never changed my position on that,” he said, adding that Quinn’s decision “was up to him.”
The outgoing Chicago mayor, Richard Daley, said he was disappointed with Quinn’s decision, though he too said it “was up to him.”
A former prosecutor, Daley said that DNA testing had made it much easier to prove guilt or innocence. “I believe DNA testing should be part of the whole criminal justice system here in the state of Illinois,” he said. “It prevents any abuse whatsoever if you get DNA testing.”
But Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor-elect, said Wednesday that he supports the governor’s decision. “It’s the right thing to do. I’m glad he’s made that decision,” the former White House chief of staff told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s a different day.”