Public opinion no longer favors death sentences in Illinois.

* An October, 2000 Roper poll specially aimed at Illinois residents found that, when given a choice of the most appropriate punishment for murder, 47% of Illinoisans favor life in prison without parole; 33% favor the death penalty

* The same poll found that 70% of Illinois residents approve of the Moratorium.

* Public testimony before Governor Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment has been overwhelmingly critical of the death penalty.

*Capital convictions brought since the Moratorium are fraught with the same flaws and injustices that contaminated the death penalty system before the Moratorium.

* Prosecutors continue to seek death sentences despite the universally acknowledged problems inherent in our state’s current death penalty process. Since the moratorium was declared, 10 defendants in seven counties -- DuPage, Macon, Sangamon, Jefferson, Kane, Jo Daviess, and Cook -- have been sentenced to death. This exceeds the number of death sentences imposed in any year since 1996.

* Race continues to play a major role in the death penalty process. Eighty percent of those condemned to death since the Moratorium are minorities, including six blacks and two Hispanics – a higher percentage than that of the already disproportionate minority population of Illinois’ death row. In the 24 capital cases currently pending in Cook, Macon, DuPage, Williamson, Saline, Will and Kane counties, 14 of the defendants are minorities.

* Juries in capital cases continue to exclude minorities. One Hispanic defendant had 11 whites and one black on his jury, while a black defendant was sentenced to death by an all-white jury.

* Prosecutors continue to base death sentences on the suspect testimony of witnesses with motives to lie. In at least two cases, the defendants were convicted on the testimony of co-defendants which was obtained in exchange for significantly lighter sentences.

* The death penalty continues to be imposed arbitrarily and unevenly across our state. Whether or not the death penalty is sought by the prosecution or imposed by the jury still depends largely on the county in which the crime occurred.

* The death penalty process continues to be exorbitantly expensive. In the Moratorium’s first year, some $28,500,000 in public funds was spent in the administration of capital cases.

* Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1977, an estimated $800,000,000 has been spent to prosecute, defend, and appeal capital cases, to maintain Death Row, and to pay settlements to those aggrieved by wrongful prosecutions and convictions.

* These amounts are over and above the amount that would have been spent had these cases been tried as LWOP (life without parole) cases.

* In the year of the moratorium, 18 capital cases were reversed or otherwise vacated by state and federal appeals courts, and another 14 capital cases were pending in the trial courts for hearings, retrials or resentencing as a result of having been vacated on appeal.

* Nathson Fields, on death row for 12 years before being granted a new trial by the Illinois Supreme Court, began his fourth year in the Cook County Jail awaiting a new trial, as the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office repeatedly delays bringing his case to trial.

* Four death row defendants have separate hearings pending which involve allegations of coerced confessions and police torture by the same group of police officers who worked under fired Police Commander Jon Burge. Meanwhile, the Cook County State’s Attorney refuses to acknowledge the systematic nature of the problem, or to even admit that such torture existed, despite findings to the contrary by both state and federal courts and the Chicago Police Board itself.

* Resources continue to be unfairly skewed in favor of the prosecution in capital cases.

* The Capital Litigation Trust Fund, a reform originally intended to level the playing field between prosecution and defense, resulted in four times as much new money going to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office as to the Public Defender’s office.