Death Penalty Bellwether
One year after lllinois' Governor Ryan declared a "broken system," capital punishment looks set for an even bigger shakeup
by Gary Johnson

Feb. 21, 2001 -- CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (APJP) -- On January 31, spirited activists from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) packed a south side Chicago church to mark the one year anniversary of Illinois' death penalty moratorium. Alarmed by his state's record of 13 death row exonerations since 1976, Republican Governor George Ryan, who supports capital punishment, imposed a moratorium on executions and a review of what he called a "broken" death penalty system.

Since Ryan's bold move, The Economist noted "America has been convulsed in debate about the death penalty." And the ensuing events of the past year prompted the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center to declare 2000 "perhaps the most significant single year affecting the death penalty in United States history."

Accordingly, it's been a good year for CEDP, which brags among its advisory board Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking", and endorsers Rubin Hurricane Carter, Michael Moore and Cornel West. The campaign organized a national day of protest over George W. Bush's controversial execution of Gary Graham in Texas, rallied at both national conventions, and called a leadership conference of prominent abolitionists and civil rights leader to Washington (in Chicago, it continues to seek justice for police torture victims known as the Death Row 10).

Still, as Lawrence Marshall of Northwestern University's Center of Wrongful Convictions told the gathering, recent accomplishments breed "awesome responsibility."

"The fact [is] that the future of the death penalty in this country rests in large part [with the people] in this room tonight," he declared to applause in a talk that likened abolition of the death penalty to the abolition of slavery.

The campaign senses the anti-death penalty momentum. Recent polls and legislative actions show a shift in the death penalty argument. Informed lawmakers, pundits and the public are questioning the fairness of a system that has seen a steady drumbeat of death row releases, (95 to date since the 1970s), reports exposing an unjust process, and politicians moving to restrict, rather than speed up, executions. 

Since Governor Ryan's moratorium, a number of events have taken place. Seven states are set to consider moratoriums or steps that could lead to abolition, while 8 other states are reviewing their death penalty systems. A Roper poll showed support for the death penalty dropped below 50% for the first time in Illinois' history. Following the Graham execution a Wall Street Journal poll showed 63% of Americans favoring a national moratorium on executions.  President Clinton cited a Justice Department study of the federal death penalty showing racial and geographical disparities as a reason to grant a six month reprieve to Juan Raul Garza. More broadly, Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, responding to a petition signed by 3.2 million people, called for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.

The campaign is staunch. At the church, large "Wanted For Murder" posters proclaiming "Stop All Executions!" depicted George W. Bush in a lineup -- "Known to be dangerous; Previous record: 152 people killed while governor in Texas; Last seen prowling the White House." Colorful leaflets updated the plight of death row inmates. Moving testimonials by family members of death row inmates hushed and spurred to clapping the mixed racial crowd of seasoned organizers, many of them young people.

Ronald Jones, the twelfth man released form Illinois' death row, told of his wrenching 8 years as a condemned man and the DNA tests that proved his innocence.

"They say death row?" Jones called out.

"I say hell no!" shouted the crowd.

"Death row!"

"Hell no!"

"Death row!!"

"Hell no!!"

"And that's what I want," Jones said. "Because until then, we gonna execute some innocent peoples....I know because they will kill you just to keep from admittin' that they made a mistake."

"We must kill the idea of killing." said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, rallying for broader grassroots support. Envisioning anti-death rallies "ward by ward," then "county by county" across the entire state, he asked that disc jockeys, rappers, teachers, principals, and even the fifty-member Chicago city council, be recruited. "Bottom up!" Jackson cried.

In his call for a moratorium, Ryan cited the Illinois release of Anthony Porter, who, with an IQ of 52, spent 16 years on death row and came to within 2 days of his execution, and a Chicago Tribune investigation on prosecutorial misconduct. Other recent studies on the Texas death penalty, error rates in capital cases, and DNA testing have heightened the public's awareness of a broken system. Activists are moving to keep the death penalty in the pubic eye while Ryan's commission formulates its recommendations--for abolition, an extended moratorium, or a revamping of the system--that will most likely end up on the desks of state legislators.

Already the Illinois Supreme Court has moved to require standards of experience for all lawyers of death penalty cases and extra training for its judges. But the moratorium has not saved nearly a dozen new people from being sent to Illinois' death row, which now houses over 170 inmates. Some 3700 sit on death row nationwide.

"People are ignorant about what the death penalty really is!" cried Marshall, who has succeeded in helping free a number of innocent defendants sentenced to death of life. People, he noted, once educated, and no matter what their politics, "have to recognize how sickeningly corrupt the system is, how awful it is, and how it cannot be allowed to survive."

The 1972 Supreme Court ruling (provoked by the NAACP) that banned executions for being "cruel and unusual" treatment and in violation of the constitution's eighth amendment was lifted four years later after states retooled their death penalty statutes. So it's been twenty-five years since the experts promised citizens a new and improved system free of risk of error, racism, or arbitrary factors.

"They were lied to," Marshall said, adding that no system is full proof. "[N]o matter what reforms we throw at it there will be witnesses who lie, there will be police officers who lie, there will be judges who will be corrupt, there will be prosecutors who will hide evidence, there will be defense lawyers who will sleep on the job--because we are human beings."

Anything short of a top down reexamination of the death penalty, he warned, would be "setting the clock back."

A hero outside his own state with national and even international acclaim for his moratorium, Ryan enjoys, as one local journalist says, "basement level popularity polls," for a drivers license-for-bribery scandal, and hence, he will not be able to provide political cover for his legislators. 

Anti-death penalty forces watchful of Illinois ask this question: If given the chance, will the state lawmakers of the nation's only standing moratorium have the political will to "do the right thing," as activists say, and vote for abolition?

Marshall noted a shining metaphor in the governor's otherwise dry State of the State speech delivered that very afternoon. When Ryan touched on the moratorium, legislators, who, as a rule, steel their emotions behind a safe, tough-on-crime facade, actually applauded. Sparked by members of the black caucus, who immediately leaped to their feet and clapped, the applause spread to fellow Democrats and finally to Republicans for an extended standing ovation.

Said Marshall, "And one legislator looked at the other legislator and said, 'Hey, we're allowed to clap for this, ya know?'"

Gary Johnson coordinates the graduate writing program at Columbia College in Chicago and contributes to public radio, most recently NPR's Living on Earth and Pacifica. 

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