Taped confessions to be law
State will be 1st to pass legislation

By Rick Pearson
Tribune political reporter
July 17, 2003

Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he will sign legislation Thursday making Illinois the first state in the country to have a law requiring that formal interrogations and confessions of murder suspects be taped.
Blagojevich called the measure, part of a six-bill package of wide-ranging criminal justice reforms, an important step toward restoring the integrity of a system tarnished by the exoneration of 13 Death Row inmates.

Other bills he said he will sign during a ceremony at Woodson Regional Library on Chicago's South Side include measures ranging from an effort to ban racial profiling by law enforcement in traffic stops to requiring police to expunge arrest records of those found later to be innocent.

Blagojevich acknowledged his signature on the taped-interrogation measure marked a personal evolution of sorts.

As a candidate for governor and, even during his initial months as the state's chief executive, Blagojevich had qualms over such a law. A former assistant Cook County prosecutor, Blagojevich said he had concerns "about the ability of law enforcement to be able to gather facts and gather evidence to be able to find and convict criminals."

But, he said, after conferring with defense attorneys and prosecutors, including Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine, and after holding conversations with police, his apprehension over the measure eased.
"When there is a system that can allow an innocent person to be sent to Death Row based on a questionable confession, we have a moral obligation to intervene," Blagojevich said Wednesday.

State Sen. Barack Obama (D-Chicago), a sponsor of the legislation, called the measure "landmark legislation" that satisfies the rights of defendants, the ability of prosecutors and gives "certainty to the families of victims."

"With this law in place, it's going to be much harder to convict an innocent person based on a false conviction," said Obama, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. "Conversely, it can be a very powerful tool to convict the guilty."

Death penalty reform advocates have long contended that false confessions have led to numerous convictions in capital-punishment cases that have later been overturned.

Taping is required in two other states--Minnesota and Alaska--but only as a result of court orders rather than legislative action. The Illinois law will allow the use of video or audio taping of interrogations and confessions. Police and prosecutors will have two years to develop recording procedures.

Even though he plans to sign the legislation, and while he reviews a more comprehensive death-penalty overhaul, Blagojevich said he was "not so sure" that a series of reforms "will make me feel comfortable that the death penalty can be implemented in Illinois without being prone to a mistake."

"As someone who supports the death penalty and as someone who would like to see the death penalty back in place in the right kind of cases, putting that aside, under no circumstances could I ever think about [an execution] unless I felt that we had reformed the system in such a way where we're not prone to making the kind of mistakes that were made in the past," Blagojevich said. "And I just don't sense we're anywhere near being at a point where that would be the case."

Blagojevich has previously said he would maintain the moratorium on capital punishment imposed by his predecessor, George Ryan, in 2000. In one of his final acts as governor in January, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 164 people on Death Row, meaning Blagojevich would be unlikely to face a decision on executions anytime soon.

Blagojevich also said he will sign a measure mandating law-enforcement training on racial profiling and requiring local police to record data in traffic stops so that it can be collected and analyzed to determine whether people are being pulled over based solely on their race.

Blagojevich's signature on that measure follows a ruling by the U.S. Justice Department last month that banned the use of racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies. His signature would add Illinois to a list of more than 30 states that have adopted laws or have been ordered by the courts through consent decrees to require special training for police and monitoring of traffic stops.

Other legislation Blagojevich said he will sign would require expunging of arrest records of people later found to be innocent. The measure also creates a program to provide information to individuals who may be eligible to have their records cleared or sealed. It also provides for the automatic sealing of arrest and misdemeanor conviction records of people who have not had a subsequent conviction within three years.

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