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The events in Deadline
affected less than 5% of death row prisoners nationwide. Think other lawmakers should follow Gov.
Ryan's example? Here's how you can take action.
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For Death Penalty State Residents Only |
For Everyone
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Residents of these death penalty-free states should not send this message:
Alaska
Hawaii
Iowa
Maine |
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
North Dakota |
Rhode Island
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin |
| District of Columbia |
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Roger Coleman was executed in 1992 based on circumstantial evidence, despite maintaining his innocence.
Since then, DNA testing has made it possible to prove
whether or not he committed the crime.
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has the power to order those tests, but has thus far refused to do so.
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Letters to your local paper can be an important way to make your voice heard. Some suggested talking
points are included, but the letter will be strongest -- and have the best chance of publication -- if
you use them only as inspiration and write with your own voice.
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| A Message From Gov. George Ryan
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The flaws in the Illinois death penalty system reflected in Deadline are not limited to my state. But
I know for a fact the criminal justice system in the state of Illinois does not work. There is no
justice and no fairness in the system. If you’re poor and a minority, the system is stacked against
you. I learned that the moment Anthony Porter was released from death row. Quite frankly, everything
I believed in about our criminal justice system came into question.
As a Republican and a strong death penalty advocate, I had always believed that the system worked and
that the criminals are caught and locked up, and if the crime was bad enough they were executed. I
thought that innocent men being sent to death row was the stuff of Hollywood.
In 1999, just two weeks after I became governor, journalism students working with a private detective
gave Anthony Porter his freedom. Had it not been for them, Anthony Porter, an innocent man, would have
been put to his death by the state of Illinois.
Shortly after Mr. Porter was freed, my first capital punishment case came to my desk. After seeing how
the system had failed Porter, I was deeply concerned about making the right decision. The case seemed
to be one of those for which the death penalty was meant, but what, I ask, if he was innocent?
After a good deal of study and research, I sat in judgment of the convicted and allowed his execution
to proceed in March of 1999. I made the decision to take another man’s life.
In November of 1999, I was provided with the chilling numbers that proved our capital punishment system
had collapsed. Thirty-three of our death row inmates had been represented at trial by lawyers who had
been disbarred or suspended from the practice of law.
Of the more than 160 death row inmates, 35 were African-American defendants who had been tried by all
white juries. Forty-six of the inmates were convicted, and sent to death row, on the basis of testimony
from jailhouse informants.
It was a shameful scorecard: out of 25 sentenced to die, 13 were exonerated by the courts and 12 were
convicted and executed.
Knowing all of these facts, that I came to know in January of 2000, I did the only thing I could do. I
called a halt to the system of death in Illinois. I asked myself how I could permit a system to
continue that decided who should live and die with the same or less accuracy than if I had flipped a
coin. Heads or tails, are you guilty or are you innocent? Should you live or should you die? I
declared a moratorium to stop the machinery of death.
Shortly after I declared the moratorium, I appointed a commission to review the entire capital
punishment system of Illinois. They reviewed every case of the inmates on death row. Every case.
They reviewed each of the cases of the innocent men that had been exonerated. It took two years of
hard work, and they produced a remarkable document. It was a report on the entire system that made 85
recommendations for reform.
One of my great regrets is that I couldn’t convince the Illinois general assembly to pass the reforms
recommended by the commission. And so as my term as governor neared an end, and after a great deal of
soul searching, a great deal of research and study, and the fear of executing an innocent man, I
commuted the sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison without parole to make sure that the state
would not execute an innocent person.
The system is flawed, fatally. And it is plagued with inequities beyond our human control. It has
emerged as a burden on our conscience that is too great to ignore. It’s time to raise our voices
together. Please join us to call on every state in The Union to call for a moratorium on the death
penalty so it can be studied, corrected if need be, or abolished outright.
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