Illinois and Capital Punishment

Eleven years after gross injustice compelled a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois, the State Legislature has concluded that the only way to guard against execution of the innocent is to outlaw the death penalty. Gov. Pat Quinn, who has sent mixed signals in the past, should quickly sign the legislation into law.

Former Gov. George Ryan declared the moratorium in 2000 in the face of a running scandal of faulty trials that cost innocent inmates their lives. Three years later, Mr. Ryan stunned the nation by commuting 167 death row felons to life terms and calling for a hard look at the business of state-sanctioned death. (Mr. Ryan subsequently went to prison for statehouse corruption, but the flaws of capital punishment remained clear, as dramatically confirmed now by the Legislature.)

Under prodding from outside investigators, the state has had to free 20 inmates from death row since 1987. It has also enacted some commendable reforms. These included mandatory taping of interviews with homicide suspects — a measure that followed tales of torture in notorious Chicago precinct houses.

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This is a New York Times editorial. Tom


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