Governor gives a more personal response

By Sara Hooker
Daily Herald Staff Writer
June 8, 2004

SPRINGFIELD -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich agrees Anthony Mertz deserves to die.

But he told Cindy McNamara, the mother of Mertz's murder victim, in a letter that he can't appease her wishes just yet.

"As a former prosecutor, I believe that the death penalty is sometimes the only answer to the evil, heinous crimes some people choose to commit," read a letter signed by Blagojevich that she received Friday.

"As governor, it is my responsibility to make sure our criminal justice system treats everyone fairly according to the constitution, even when that means letting criminals like Mertz live on death row," the governor wrote.

Mertz was convicted last year for the 2001 murder of Shannon McNamara, a 21-year-old Eastern Illinois University student from Rolling Meadows.

Cindy McNamara represents one side of the highly charged issue pressing Blagojevich for action. She said that while she appreciates his response, it still doesn't answer anybody's questions about the fate of the death penalty.

"He talked to me, basically, as a father of two daughters, but yet as the governor, he didn't answer any of my questions," McNamara said. "Never did he tell me how long he was going to keep the lid on this moratorium, what basically the future held for lifting it up."

On April 5, McNamara wrote a letter to the governor rehashing the pain of her daughter's slaying and urging him to lift the moratorium on executions.

In response, she received a brief postcard stamped with Blagojevich's signature stating her the letter had been received, thanked her for expressing her concerns and noted Blagojevich looks forward to serving McNamara "and the people of Illinois."

McNamara called the postcard a stinging slap in the face and said she just wanted to know the governor saw the letter.

Now, two months later, Blagojevich sent the personal letter she was hoping for, and the two plan to meet to discuss the issue further next week.

Blagojevich has stuck to his pledge that he's not going to act on the state's capital punishment system until he sees the results of death penalty reforms penned into law in January. He said as much in his letter to McNamara.

"Once we can prove the integrity of the system, we will be able to give justice to your daughter and other innocent victims like her," the letter read.

But McNamara said the wait has been long enough.

"I feel like I'm just kind of waiting for who's in charge to do it and it's not Blagojevich," McNamara said.

Blagojevich and the other legislative leaders have yet to name anyone to the Capital Punishment Reform Study Commission, a 15-member panel that is supposed to review reforms and report to the General Assembly annually.

State Rep. Paul Froehlich, a Schaumburg Republican, was a sponsor on the reform plan that created the commission and said he would like to see Blagojevich encourage the naming of members.

"I wish he would get going on that," Froehlich said. "This is especially imperative because he's the one indefinitely maintaining a moratorium, and you'd think he'd want to find out as soon as he could whether the reforms are having the desired benefits or not."

But others say changes wouldn't affect the system right now anyway.

"It would be kind of a futile act to lift the moratorium anyway because nobody's anywhere near execution in Illinois," said Charles Hoffman, an assistant appellate defender.

Hoffman said given time served, the earliest Mertz could face death is six years from now. Anyone facing a death sentence must file an appeal, starting a process that could last anywhere from eight up to 25 years.

Mertz was the first person sentenced to death row since former Gov. George Ryan cleared it last year. Ryan halted executions in 2000 after 13 inmates sentenced to die were exonerated and freed. Ryan denounced the system as "haunted by the demon of error."

In January of 2003 he emptied death row by switching all death sentences to life in prison. He pardoned four inmates, raising the number of those exonerated to 17.

Despite the hopes of some to lift the moratorium, problems still continue to surface.

Just last month, what would have been the 18th person wrongly sentenced to die was freed from Danville Correctional Center after 17 years behind bars.

Reforms passed in January were designed to avoid such problems. Among other things, the Illinois Supreme Court now has the power to overturn a death sentence if it thinks it's unfair. Also, mentally handicapped killers are now ineligible for the death penalty and inmates who think they can prove their own innocence can bring forth evidence.

Some lawmakers have since called for Blagojevich to lift the moratorium, saying the death penalty is still the law and should be followed. House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego was among those. But David Dring, Cross's spokesman, said there's little lawmakers can do until the governor gives the go-ahead.

"It makes any more changes to the death penalty system not very necessary if he's not going to lift the moratorium or indicate what other changes he would want to lift the moratorium," Dring said.

Lawmakers have since all but abandoned the highly controversial issue.

"I don't think that the people have lost their commitment to ending the death penalty," said Jane Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "I think it's just like many other social issues in Springfield this year, especially with the budget crisis; they're not going to be at the forefront of anybody's legislative agenda right now."