Thursday, March 10, 2011

Death Penalty Finished in Illinois

The Atlantic reports.

News today from Springfield, Ill., where Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation that ends capital punishment in the Land of Lincoln. The governor also commuted 15 existing death sentences to life without parole. The move came roughly eight years after then-Governor Pat Ryan (now in prison himself) emptied the state's death row after declaring the state's death penalty scheme was "haunted by the demon of error."

Illinois thus becomes the fourth state in four years to purge its death penalty laws. New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York (via court order) also have dropped from their books capital punishment as a sentencing option. According to Richard Dieter, who tracks these things for the Death Penalty Information Center, Illinois is the 16th state to repeal its death penalty protocols -- and more may be on the way.
With the death penalty, we're moving in the right direction. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

6 comments:

  1. Personally, I think Illinois is wrong. Somehow we live in a society that condones late term abortions and yet thinks there is a morals issue with the death of the worst/lowest level of convicted criminals. I find incredible hypocrisy in that.
    Now you may ask me if I value life so much as to want to protect a child, why do I want adults put to death? Because I have seen some of this evil in these criminals, and, IMHO, we would be doing society a favor by ridding ourselves with some of them.

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  2. Mikeb30200:

    Another reason for an Uparmed MerKKKa. Howyagonna git justice if'n ya can't kill the perps? See, the plan is to have everybody act as vic, perp, arresting officer, judge, jury and executioner. It will save so much money. 'Sides it'll eliminate any possibility of "innocent" people being put on death row. Sneak thieves, convenience store robbers, crack addicts, mental patients who are off their meds, people who look at me too long or say stuff I don't like--KILL 'EM ALL!! and let Heaven's legal dept. sort 'em out. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

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  3. With all the gangbanging, repeat offender crimeys running the streets in Chicago, you'd never think that Illinois had a death penalty.

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  4. Then they'd better do things right if they are going to condemn people to death. Of course, real effort takes time and, far far worse, MONEY. It's cheaper to send 'em to the chair, needle, oven, whatever in some cases. Everything today is about doing things cheaper; not taking the time to do a good job or even admitting fault

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  5. The problem is, Dannytheman, we're not better off without some of them. By executing even the worst of them we are guilty of pre-meditated state-sanctioned murder. We're guilty of what we condemn them of.

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  6. "...we're not better off without some of them."

    Yes we are. Just as a dog is better off without some of it's fleas.

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