by Alexa Aguilar
Gov. George Ryan announced plans to review the files of all 163 Illinois inmates on death row at a conference in Oregon Friday, and also said he would consider commuting some of the death sentences.
But the Illinois Death Penalty Commission, a panel Ryan formed to look into the capital punishment system, did not discuss commuting the sentences as part of the commission's report, said Sen. Paul Simon, co-chair of the committee.
"We have not discussed that possible action," Simon, director of the SIU Public Policy Institute, said.
Wanda Taylor, spokeswoman for the governor, said that Ryan doesn't plan on taking any action until he has heard the commission's report. She said she has heard no definite deadline for the report's release. Simon said there was a tentative March deadline.
Ryan's remarks were part of his keynote speech at a national capital punishment conference at the University of Oregon.
He was there because he gained national attention in January 2000 when he declared a moratorium on all executions in Illinois.
The moratorium was Ryan's response to purported flaws in the Illinois system, which freed 13 people from death row since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977. That's one more than the state has executed during that period.
"A 99 percent accuracy rate isn't good enough," Ryan said at the conference. "If government can't get this right, it ought not be in the business of passing such final, irreversible judgment."
Simon said if the governor did commute death row sentences, that it would be "an unusual and unprecedented step."
And it would be a step Simon agrees should be taken.
"I think that the evidence is so strong that innocent people are put to death," Simon said. "We should not have that as part of how we operate."
Simon didn't want to get specific about the recommendations the panel has come up with because the commission has agreed to release the report publicly. He stressed that the commission is made of participants who fall on both sides of the capital punishment issue.
Reporter Alexa Aguilar can be reached at aaguilar@dailyegyptian.com
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
