Blanket Pardon - I've been

Blanket Pardon - I've been wondering when this would happen - Ilinois governor Ryan plans to commute all Illinois Death Row sentences to life in prison.

"I have had mixed emotions concerning this issue," Ryan told the Sun-Times explaining while he'll reduce all of the sentences to--at most--life in prison. No pardons are expected. "Occasionally, it was on the front burner, sometimes on the back burner and sometimes off the burner as to what to do at all.

This is an issue I've always been torn over. I'm a conservative (anyone still have any doubts about that?), but I've always had qualms about the death penalty.

OK, let's be accurate - one qualm. I think the death penalty - constitutionally applied - is moral, and sometimes necessary.

I also think that it's almost inevitable that the death penalty will be mistakenly applied. The Stanford University Death Center Information Project raised a lot of hackles in 1987 with its report that a number of innocent people had been proven innocent. The report had its critics as well - few things are black and white with this issue.

But it seems clear that the innocent have been executed, and that nothing really prevents it from happening again, although some (like Ann Coulter dispute that, too). Prosecutors are not only human - some of them are corrupt humans with their minds focused on their politics. Executions equal votes, which is too tempting for some prosecutors.

My step-son's high school history teacher is a former Cook County (Chicago) public defender, whose crowning achievement was getting four innocent men released from Illinois' Death Row about ten years ago. They'd been convicted "beyond a reasonable doubt" - only because prosecutors had stashed or destroyed exculpatory evidence.

It happens. In Illinois, it seems to happen a lot. Hence, Ryan's action.

Can't say as I'd argue about it this time.

Your thoughts?

Posted by Mitch at January 11, 2003 07:30 AM