|
CounterPunch
January
18 / 19, 2003
How the Great Victory Was Won
Death Row Shut
Down in Illinois
By ERIC RUDER
Declaring that the death penalty system was "haunted
by the demon of error," Illinois Gov. George Ryan made history
last weekend when he emptied death row. Ryan commuted the sentences
of all 156 death row prisoners--a decision that is almost unparalleled
in the history of America's killing machine.
"The only other thing that would
match what he's done is in 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court
overturned the death penalty, and 600 death sentences were reduced
to life with that decision," said Richard Dieter, of the
Death Penalty Information Center.
Ryan also granted full pardons to four
death row prisoners who were tortured by Chicago police into
giving false confessions that landed them on death row--Madison
Hobley, Leroy Orange, Aaron Patterson and Stanley Howard.
Collectively, the four spent nearly 70
years waiting to die for crimes that they didn't commit. Their
pardons bring to 17 the number of Illinois prisoners exonerated
and freed from death row since 1977.
"I don't even know how to explain
it," Madison Hobley told Socialist Worker. "I'm in
awe. I can't believe I'm actually free. All this life out here,
and the opportunities compared to where I was a week ago--in
a tiny cell, with a 13-inch television and a little Panasonic
radio as my only outlets. I just wish that the guys that I left
behind could be here to experience the same thing. The governor
saved some lives, and that's a great act. But I feel for the
guys who are now spending the rest of their lives in a cell.
There are at least five more innocent former death row prisoners
who are still behind bars, but even those who aren't innocent--you
can't tell me that people can't be rehabilitated."
The day after his release, Aaron Patterson
spoke at a Chicago demonstration against war on Iraq. "We
don't have to go overseas for the war," Aaron told the cheering
crowd. "The war is right here, right on over there at City
Hall...They declare war on Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
We're going to declare war on them for all their injustices."
In announcing his decision to issue the
pardons and blanket commutation, Ryan recounted the shocking
injustice of the criminal justice system. He gave graphic descriptions
of the torture inflicted on Black men by Chicago Police Commander
Jon Burge.
He talked about the racism of death row,
where more than two-thirds of the prisoners were African American--and
expressed amazement at the poor legal representation given to
most capital defendants.
Ryan pointed out that the Illinois state
legislature had three separate opportunities to vote on some
of the 85 reforms suggested by a commission that he appointed
to study the death penalty--but that lawmakers haven't passed
a single measure.
Yet even as Ryan laid out the devastating
case against capital punishment, pro-death penalty prosecutors
like Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine and DuPage County
State's Attorney Joe Birkett attacked Ryan's decision.
Fortunately, these execution-hungry prosecutors
can only sputter. But activists know that they will try to fill
up death row again, as quickly as possible. Still, Devine had
to admit that the death penalty system now has been "so
bludgeoned that there's grave doubt about its viability,"
and he called for "a full debate about whether we should
have a death penalty at all." Devine, of course, wants to
win lawmakers back to his side. But this is an opportunity for
abolitionists to take the offensive.
With Democrats controlling the governors'
mansion and both houses of the legislature for the first time
in 30 years, you might think that the road to abolition would
be clear. But Emil Jones--the newly sworn-in president of the
state senate who says that he's personally in favor of abolition--said
that proposing an end to the death penalty is "political
suicide." It won't be--if our side lays out the case and
keeps up the fight.
Ryan's decision has transformed the discussion
about the death penalty across the U.S. Anyone who would have
predicted two years ago that Illinois' death row would be empty
today would have been dismissed as a dreamer. But anti-death
penalty activists are celebrating the fact that this dream has
become a reality.
It's time to turn our attention to emptying
death rows in every state--and abolishing capital punishment
once and for all!
How did we
win?
ALICE KIM and MARLENE MARTIN, members
of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, explain how this victory
came about.
Marlene: I have to say quite honestly that it was shocking--even
though we knew this was possible and had been organizing for
this for so long. It's a sort of overwhelming feeling at the
scale of what we won.
We didn't really know what Governor Ryan
was going to do until he did it. He was under pressure from both
sides, and he was vacillating. He moved against blanket commutations
last October when the state clemency board held hearings and
prosecutors paraded the relatives of murder victims in front
of the cameras.
But our side kept the pressure on with
demonstrations and many different events by different groups,
up until the very last day. That obviously had an impact.
Being in the room when Ryan made his
speech, to be honest, you would have thought you were hearing
a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. It sounded
like he was lifting whole passages out of our newsletter, the
New Abolitionist, and our pamphlet calling for justice for the
Death Row 10.
We in the Campaign had always wanted
to make the plight of the Death Row 10--the men on death row
who were torture victims of Chicago police--a household word,
and now it is, at least in Illinois.
Alice: There's no question about it--Governor Ryan
took extraordinary action by pardoning the four innocent men
who were tortured into giving false confessions and by commuting
all Illinois death sentences. Did he do the right thing? Absolutely.
He made his decision based on the evidence that was put before
him that the death penalty system is broken.
The work of activists, attorneys, students,
journalists, death row family members and death row prisoners
themselves has exposed the death penalty in Illinois. And activism
in particular was the driving force behind the call for blanket
commutations. In mid-October, pro-death penalty forces seemed
to be gaining ground as prosecutors and police exploited the
agony and pain of family members who had lost loved ones to violent
crime.
But our side pushed back. Death row family
members organized themselves and meet with Governor Ryan to tell
their own stories about their agony and pain--what they suffer
by having a loved one on death row. The Campaign to End the Death
Penalty and other groups organized press conferences, town hall
meetings and rallies urging Governor Ryan to commute all death
sentences. The Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions held
a National Gathering of the Exonerated and organized a march
of exonerated death row prisoners calling for blanket commutations.
Rev. Jesse Jackson went with Campaign members to visit the Death
Row 10 on New Year's Eve and called for blanket commutations.
These are just a few of the examples
of the activism--really the whirlwind of activity--in the months
and weeks leading up to Ryan's decision.
We were also involved in putting forward
the cases of the Death Row 10. These are a group of men who were
tortured onto death row by the police, and they organized themselves
on the inside and asked the Campaign to be their voice on the
outside. We took up their request, and ever since, we've been
working with family members to get the truth out--and I think
you can see the results of that in the fact that Governor Ryan's
pardons were for four of the Death Row 10. The activism around
these cases in particular paved the way for this decision.
Marlene: Ryan is a Republican. He's under investigation
for having taken bribes, and when it came to the state budget,
he was heartless in making cuts. But on this issue, he was more
radical than any politician in the state.
I think a lot of people are having a
hard time understanding that. But one thing that it says is just
how persuasive the case is against the death penalty--that under
these circumstances, a mainstream Republican can be convinced.
Ryan was the one who made the decision.
But he was presented with the case and the reasons for doing
it. There were many people and years of struggle that brought
the situation to this point--that made this happen.
This sweeping victory is a confirmation
that what we do matters--that activism was central to this victory,
even though that may not be acknowledged by the media. And it
shows what's possible--that struggle can win, and is key to winning.
There's no question about it--that this victory will bolster
all progressive forces in this country.
The excitement, the pride, the feeling
of accomplishment has given a whole new level of confidence to
those activists who have been fighting on this front for years
as well as to the newcomers. It feels like anything is possible
now, and that's a good feeling. It really feels like this could
be the beginning of the end of the death penalty in the United
States.
Eric Ruder
writes for the Socialist
Worker, where this article originally appeared.
Yesterday's
Features
rancis A. Boyle
Draft
Impeachment Resolution Against George W. Bush
Yigal Bronner
Conscientious
Objectors Abused by the IDF
Jason Leopold
When
Bush First Vowed to "Take Out" Saddam
CounterPunch Wire
Gov.
Ryan Nominated for Nobel Prize
JoAnn Wypijewski
Workers
Against War
Carl Estabrook
Roe
30 Years Later
Abortion and the Left
Bernard Weiner
Inside Saddam's War Diary
Hot Damn! It's Showtime!
Maria Tomchick
A
Tax Cut That Would Sink the Economy
William Hughes
Give Me That Old Time Republic
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|