Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty
January 27, 2004

QUESTIONING A BROKEN SYSTEM:
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN ILLINOIS IN 2003
HIGHLIGHTS

Public opinion continues to move away from the death penalty:

—Two-thirds of the voting public would either be more likely to support or would not be opposed if their legislator voted to abolish the death penalty.

—Only 54% of Illinois voters now support the death penalty. Opposition to the death penalty has risen to 41%. National support for the death penalty is at a 25-year low.

—Local citizens publicly challenged their State’s Attorneys’ seeking of the death penalty during several downstate trials.

Judges and juries repeatedly rejected the death penalty:

—At only two, the number of death sentences in Illinois this year is the lowest since
the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Of 39 capital cases resolved in 2003,
37 were concluded without a death sentence.

—In Cook County, of 22 cases where the state’s attorney sought the death penalty
to the conclusion of the case, not a single death sentence was handed out
during 2003.

—Seventeen capital cases were resolved in downstate Illinois in 2003. Fifteen
ended without a death sentence.

—Four out of the five juries who considered the death penalty in 2003 rejected it.

Capital trials continue to exhibit serious flaws:

—Prosecutors in capital trials continue to use testimony of jailhouse snitches and co-defendants who have made deals in exchange for their testimony.

—Prosecutors also continue to use questionable confessions, sometimes obtained by police officers with prior histories of obtaining wrongful confessions.

—In at least one current death penalty trial, prosecutors did not produce police reports that were at odds with officers’ testimony at the trial. No mistrial was granted.

—In at least seven capital trials in 2003, prosecutors sought the death penalty in cases so weak that the defendants were ultimately acquitted or charges against them dropped.

—Prosecutors sought the death penalty in many cases where the defendant suffered from serious mental illness.

The death penalty process continues to drain scarce crime-fighting resources:

—An estimated $32 million was spent to try capital cases in 2003. The cases of the two men sentenced to death cost over $3 million.

—This is more than double the estimated cost for these cases if the death penalty were not involved – even if life without parole were sought in every case.

—These expenses came in a year marked by cutbacks for programs vital to crime prevention and control, including schools, mental health and drug treatment.

Reforms enacted in 2003 are not sufficient to prevent future injustices:

—Arbitrariness continues to plague the death penalty in Illinois. Both the 2003 death sentences involved the murders of white victims, and were tried in rural counties. Those two factors were cited by the Commission on Capital Punishment as arbitrary influences on who gets the death penalty in Illinois. Convictions for similar crimes in urban counties or where the victims were racial minorities did not result in the death penalty.

—Reforms passed by the legislature ignored Commission proposals to correct this arbitrariness. Other problems, such as co-defendant and jailhouse snitch testimony, crime lab bias and flawed witness ID’s, were addressed only partially.

—Several highly publicized reforms – including videotaped interrogations and penalties for police who lie under oath – remain untested as to enforcement and long-term effect.

Efforts to investigate past wrongful convictions are incomplete, while new exonerations have brought further problems to light:

—Cook County prosecutors have repeatedly resisted attempts to investigate police
torture under Cmdr. Jon Burge and other abuses, despite the exoneration of four Death Row prisoners interrogated by Burge.

—The official probes of the Ford Heights Four case found grave errors by police and prosecutors, but did not result in any charges against those responsible or changes in the system.

—Exonerations and lawsuits raised issues including written “confessions” in English from Spanish-speaking suspects; suspects held for interrogation for days without a lawyer and unreliable witness testimony

Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
180 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2300, Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: (312) 849-2279; Fax: (312) 201-9760; website: www.icadp.org