[JPI] Ryan commutes all death sentences in IL

[Chris Menzel]

WOW!  I hope y'all got a chance to see the speech outgoing Illinois
governor George Ryan just gave at Northwestern University which culminated
in his blanket commutation of all 157 death penalty convictions in
Illinois to "lesser" sentences, typically life w/o parole.  

This was no simple announcement.  It was as compelling, cogent, and
stirring a speech against the death penalty as you will ever hear.
Particularly interesting was the fact that Ryan never criticized the DP
per se as immoral; indeed, Ryan is a conservative Republican who was part
of the body that re-instituted the DP in IL in 1978 in light of the
Supreme Court's decision to let the matter rest with the states.  And one
of his great frustrations that led him to blanket commutation was the
abject refusal of IL lawmakers to implement ANY of the reforms that came
out of the exhaustive three-year study that Ryan set into motion when he
first instituted a morotorium on executions in light of the discovery of
the innocence of a death row inmate by a zealous group of Northwestern
journalism students.  Thus, his action was not the result of a conversion
of any sort, but a working out of moral, political, and social principles
in which he has always deeply believed; his action was morally compelled
in light of the undeniable facts of the system.  The central premise of
his decision was simple fairness. The undeniable conclusion of his study
was that the DP system in IL is hopelessly "broken", fraught with caprice,
racial discrimination, and, worst of all, error that has unquestionably
led to the execution of innocents.  In light of its egregious failure to
dispense justice, Ryan has concluded, in the words of Justice Blackmon,
that he will "tinker with the machinery of death no longer."  Powerful
stuff.

I expect the text of the speech will be online shortly.  Find it and read
it.  It will be a historical watershed for the death penalty in America,
and is very likely to throw the national debate into high gear.

-chris