On January 10th, 2003, Governor George Ryan pardoned four men from Illinois' death row. That brought the total up to 17 men who had been sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit, exonerated after years of wrongful imprisonment. The next day, Governor Ryan, historically a proponent of capital punishment, commuted 167 death sentences to life without parole. When announcing the pardons, Ryan called the criminal justice system under which these men and women were sentenced to die "deeply flawed," "arbitrary," and "haunted by the demon of error."*

In the state of Illinois:

• 12 people on death row have been executed.
• A few people have died while on death row.
• 167 on death row have had their sentences commuted.
• 20 on death row have been exonerated.

Some who have not been exonerated are innocent; most are not. Some of those on death row are remorseful and some are not. Some have become artists and writers in their time behind bars. Some have become students of the law, trying desperately to restore their honor by proving their innocence.

Every time we, the people of Illinois, kill, we destroy the life of a creative, thinking being. We remove the possibility of a human being finding his or her way to remorse and redemption. And we, as a society, take the chance of putting an innocent person to death.

------------------------------------------------

*While we are grateful to Governor Ryan for making these courageous decisions, our gratitude is overshadowed by the prosecutors' efforts to continue seeking death sentences despite the proven unfairness of the death penalty in Illinois. Instead of trying to find ways to fix this broken system, the prosecutors deny their role in this melee and vow vengeance. The death penalty in Illinois is still in operation. We still have much work to do.

------------------------------------------------
For more information about the death penalty in Illinois and other states,
please visit the Death Penalty Information Center.