HB262 - Abolish the Death Penalty in Illinois
House Bill 262 amends Illinois law to abolish the death penalty.
We are currently working hard to get co-sponsors on the bill, and we are actively working with members of the Judiciary II - Criminal Law Committee in order to make sure it gets out of committee.
Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough is the lead sponsor of the legislation in the House.
You can view the text of the bill here, and you can view where the bill is at in the legislative process here.
HB262 - Fact Sheet
Please download this fact sheet here, and share with allies, legislators, and other policy makers.
HB262 summary:
HB262 will abolish the death penalty in Illinois by removing it from the Criminal Code.
Background:
- In January of 2000, Governor Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois.
- Prior to this, 13 death row inmates were exonerated and found innocent of the crime they were originally sentenced to death.
- The Commission formed to study the death penalty in Illinois concluded "no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death."
The Death Penalty does not deter crime:
- In the last twenty years, states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate than states which do not.
- Here, in Illinois, Cook County, the county with the highest murder rate, has also committed the most people to death row with no apparent effect on homicides.
Death penalty costs more than other alternatives
- The average cost of a trial in a federal death case is about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought.
- Every state that has done a cost study has found death penalty cases are millions to hundreds of millions more than non-death cases, including cases which receive life without parole.
In Illinois
The state’s budget for Fiscal Year 2008 includes $16, 332,553 for the Capital Litigation Trust Fund. In the past five fiscal years, the Fund has been allocated just under $73 million. However, the Fund’s expenditures are only part of the true cost of maintaining capital punishment in Illinois – a cost that is difficult to estimate. Prosecutions in death penalty cases continue to be funded largely by state and local budgets outside the Fund. The resources include not only salaried state’s attorneys and their offices, but state and local police, crime labs and other court and law enforcement bodies. For more information on costs, please see our annual reports.
