DUPAGE COUNTY STATE’S ATTORNEY JOE BIRKETT COMMENTS ON THE DEATH PENALTY MORATORIUM IN ILLINOIS

While I respect for Jim Ryan, I strongly disagree with his announcement today that if elected Governor, he would not lift the moratorium on the death penalty.  The moratorium put in place by former Governor George Ryan is legal fiction.  The power to pardon, grant clemency, or commutation should be used on a case by case basis as the framers of our constitution intended.  As the Illinois Supreme Court stated in Madigan v. Snyder:

             “The grant of this essentially unreviewable power carries with it the responsibility to exercise it    in the manner intended.  Our hope is that Governors will use the clemency power in its            intended manner – to prevent miscarriages of justice in individual cases.”

Not only is the moratorium inconsistent with our constitution, it can mislead jurors into thinking that the death penalty is not “for real” and if they impose it, the penalty will never be carried out.  If a prosecutor made such an argument the case would be reversed because it diminishes the responsibility of the jurors who must make the ultimate decision.