Death Penalty in Illinois and USA - Case Study Example

Death penalty in Illinois and USA Executive summary Death penalty has attracted the attention of many and this attention has little or no parallel in any other subject. Different legal systems in the world have been evolving through times and have responded to challenges of these times with equanimity. Death penalty or capital punishment is one such space-time response to an ever daunting challenge presented by the complexity and diversity of crime. Starting with Lex Talionis or the law of retribution, human societies have sought to tackle various forms of crime by adjusting and readjusting the existing systems or altogether innovating in the face of enormous evil and antisocial behavior. The extent to which death penalty would act as a deterrent against graver crime such as murder, rape, arson and armed robbery, is not clear either. Illinois is one of the states in the US to adopt death penalty and so far has hanged 12 prisoners since 1976. While a moratorium is in existence right now, Illinois has been vacillating over some crucial legal reforms as well. By April 2008, 37 states, the federal government and the US military had authorized death penalty. Its outcomes are yet to be known. Introduction Death penalty was reintroduced in the USA in 1976 on the aftermath of the case Gregg v. Georgia 428, U.S. 153. Since then little more than one thousand inmates have been put to death and the practice is becoming unpopular day by in the US. Out of the 37 states which have adopted death penalty many have questioned the credibility and efficacy of it over the years because in many cases death penalty has rarely acted as a deterrent to would-be criminals. A big question hangs right now over its future status. Death penalty or capital punishment in the state of Illinois was adopted in 1976. After more than three decades of practice, its efficacy in crime prevention has cast a bigger cloud over the legislative assembly of the state (Clarke and Whitt, 2007). So far 12 prisoners have been sent to gallows in Illinois and the current moratorium was declared by the then Republican Governor, George Ryan, who passionately believed after the so called “Anthony Porter’s case”. Anthony Porter spent 15 years in the death row and was declared mentally ill just two days before his execution. Subsequently he was exonerated when it was proved by a group of student journalists that the man responsible for the crime was somebody else. Illinois’ checkered history of capital punishment has been offered as a comparatively better case study to commute death sentences to life terms or even to scrap death penalty. In the first place the state has a unique history of death penalty with 12 inmates so far hanged and 13 remaining on the death row. Governor Ryan commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment just before he left office in the year 2003. The total number of prisoners whose death sentences were commuted was 167. Ryan is not the first in the USA to pardon death row prisoners in this manner. Winthrop Rockefeller, the Governor of Arkansas in 1970 did commute the death sentence of every death row inmate to life imprisonment. Incidentally The US military carried out its first execution in 2008 after a lapse of 47 years. Analysis On June 29, 1972, the US Supreme Court declared all death penalty laws in Illinois to be null and void. This was ironically followed by a new set of death penalty laws signed by Governor Dan Walker in 1973. These new laws provided for the creation of three-judge panels for sentencing offenders. Though the new laws were enacted with the sole purpose of correcting what prevailed in 1972 and before, the supreme Court again struck down these laws in 1975 claiming that the state did not have constitutional authority to appoint three-judge panels for sentencing. The US federal government and the individual states have been feeling the pressure for change to capital punishment while the public opinion is increasingly in favour of it (Pfiffner, 2007). As many as 37 states have adopted it and continue to support it or are considering the abolition option due to various shortcomings such as the wrong punishment meted out to the wrong person. While the individual states have been at crossroads whether to abolish it and commute all death sentences to life imprisonment, the federal government is particularly in a fix whether leniency could be misinterpreted as a weakness by criminal elements in the society. Social dimension apart there is also a cultural element in it. Crime has received a variety of negative response from the society. Though criminal intent is never doubted when handing a judgment, it’s not to be taken for granted either for in some cases criminal intent is not only missing but also cannot be attributed to the would-be convict. In the US individual states have followed the public opinion in adopting or rejecting death penalty. Yet public opinion seems to be veering away from blanket support to case-by-case support. The US experience in supporting death penalty at the federal level is also replete with many controversial issues such as costs, prisoners’ rights and subsequent reaction to hangings (Banner, 2003). The following table illustrates the figures of executions and the number of prisoners on the death row in each jurisdiction. It must be noted here that the restitution of death penalty took place in 1976. Thus data for executions are not available for the period immediately preceding it. Texas has topped the table with 405 executions by April 2008. This is a considerable figure when compared to many other states. Number of inmates on the death row in Texas is 370 which again is the highest figure for any state. The table has been arranged to show the number of executions from the highest to the lowest. As for zero executions in some states at the bottom of the table, these states have not authorized death penalty yet. However it must be noted that by April 2008 both the US military and the federal government had adopted death penalty, though the table does not show any military executions. California has the highest number of death row inmates, i.e. 669 while its total number of executions since 1976 is just 13. Illinois is curiously placed at just below California with 12 executions while there are 13 inmates on its death row. This trend can be illustrated with reference to three very significant characteristics in the state of Illinois. In order of importance they are: (a). George Ryan’s Governorship: 1983 – 1991 (b). Fifth most populous state with a remarkable demographic and cultural diversity (c). One of the politically most influential states. Table 1: U. S. executions since 1976: 1,099 (as of April 1, 2008) On the death row in U. S.: 3,263 (as of Jan 1, 2008) Jurisdiction Executions (As of 4/1/08) On Death Row (As of 1/1/08) Texas 405 370 Virginia 98 20 Oklahoma 86 82 Missouri 66 45 Florida 64 388 North Carolina 43 166 Georgia 40 107 Alabama 38 201 South Carolina 37 58 Louisiana 27 85 Arkansas 27 38 Ohio 26 186 Arizona 23 114 Indiana 19 14 Delaware 14 19 California 13 669 Illinois 12 13 Nevada 12 83 Mississippi 08 65 Utah 06 10 Maryland 05 05 Tennessee 04 96 Washington 04 08 Federal Government 03 50 Nebraska 03 10 Pennsylvania 03 228 Montana 03 02 Oregon 02 35 Kentucky 02 39 New Mexico 01 01 Idaho 01 19 South Dakota 01 03 Wyoming 01 02 Colorado 01 01 New York 00 00 Connecticut 01 09 New Hampshire 00 00 New Jersey 00 00 Kansas 00 10 U.S. Military 00 06 Total 1,099 3,263 Source: www.clarkprosecutor.org Florida has 388 inmates on the death row but it has carried out just 64 executions since 1976. This is an indication of the national trend. For example many states in the South including Texas have preferred to keep death penalty on the law book while the Northern states have less of a preference for it. North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio and Arizona have a greater number of inmates on the death row while the number executed has remained much lower. This trend has been against what could be noticed in Illinois. Illinois has almost balanced its executions against those on the death row. The above five states along with Florida and California have set a national precedent by radically scaling down the number of executions while other factors remain constant. Many states have adopted a policy of carrying out only those inevitable executions probably to keep with public opinion. Despite a growing national trend of procrastination public opinion has hardened against crime and its impact on the societal fabric (O’Connor and Sabato, 2007). Illinois which is the 25th largest in area is not an exception to this rule. Almost every state has a tendency to follow the national trend. The state of Illinois has been reconsidering its adoption of death penalty ever since Governor Ryan’s balanced views on the subject. He made it clear that the state would have to weigh pros and cons of each death sentence before such execution is carried out. Though his support fell short of total abolition of death penalty in the state, he very strongly articulated the case. Illinois has been evenly balanced between the US national trend of supporting death penalty only to the extent it could be warranted and the popular backing of it as of late (Latzer, 2002). Its own stay on executions shows how once one of the most lawless states in the union could come to terms with reality. Chicago, the largest city in Illinois, was famous for its own breed of violence. Now with years of patient governance by various individuals the state has come to occupy one of the topmost slots economically with an average per capita income of approximately $45,000. Rod Blagojevich who succeeded Ryan also followed the same policy of wait-and-see on death penalty until he fell into disgrace over efforts to sell Barak Obama’s vacant senate seat. Blagojevich did not make a special commitment to abolishing death penalty in Illinois though his preference to toe the line of Ryan was unmistakably clear. The following table shows the number of executions in the USA by each year. Table 2: US Executions by year 1977 - 01 1985 - 18 1993 - 38 2001 - 66 1978 - 00 1986 - 18 1994 - 31 2002 - 71 1979 - 02 1987 - 25 1995 - 56 2003 - 65 1980 - 00 1988 - 11 1996 - 45 2004 - 59 1981 - 01 1989 - 16 1997 - 74 2005 - 60 1982 - 02 1990 - 23 1998 - 68 2006 - 53 1983 - 05 1991 - 14 1999 - 98 2007 - 42 1984 - 21 1992 - 31 2000 - 85 4/1/08 - 00 Source: www.clarkprosecutor.org The table clearly illustrates a national trend which a core constituent number of states as mentioned above have been following. In 1977 only one execution took place in the whole county. Till 1984 there were no double digit executions in the US. In 1999 the highest number of executions was recorded and the decade from 1998 to 2007 is remarkable for the biggest total of 667 executions for any decade. Interestingly these figures demonstrate not only a national trend among states but also popular support for death penalty despite a recurrent worry over its expenditure (Bedau, Editor, 1998). According to a recent Medicaid report, states spend more on death penalty and related executions than on education. The following graph illustrates how the number of executions has been rising. The figure records data from 1976 to 2006 and adequately captures the national trend. As for Illinois with just 12 executions during the whole period it’s below the national trend and average. Figure 1: U.S. Executions 1976-2006 Source: www.newsbatch.com Conclusion Death penalty in the US has received a mixture of positive to negative responses though there has been a clear national official level pattern of supporting popular will while at the same time showing a preference for staying executions on various grounds. In Illinois this is all the more obvious when the pattern of executions is looked at. Till the nationwide restitution of death penalty in 1976, the state legislature was subject to reprimands by the US Supreme Court over its constitutionality and lack of proper procedure (Delfino and Day, 2008). Though Illinois followed the national trend in staying executions especially since Governor Ryan’s time, there has been very little else to show that the state characteristically represents the national trend. However it must be noted here that except for the insignificance of its numbers – death row prisoners and executions – it significantly captures the mood of those core states such as California, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Alabama and Ohio. This aspect of the trend is supported by the fact that these states and a number of other states have preferred to toe the middle line thus avoiding the wrath of the Supreme Court which often accuses states of inadequate legal processes and procedures in sentencing. Finally, the successive US federal governments since 1972 have shown some considerable hesitation in authorizing executions up until 1994. It was after 1994 that the number of executions began to increase led by Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Missouri and so on. Again it’s is a reflection of the popular support for death penalty (Dow, 2002).However, Illinois in particular and many other states in general have preferred to soft-pedal the issue due to the fact that in many instances the justification for death penalty is based on very tenuous arguments which seek to justify such executions on the sole premise that offenders deserve such harsh punishment because they were sane enough to realize the gravity of their crime at the time of committing it. Those who support it pay very little or no attention at all to procedural lapses which end up sentencing the wrong person (Russell, 1993). Thus it’s more likely that death penalty in the US will die a natural death (See Figure 1 above). REFERENCES 1. Banner, S. 2003, The Death Penalty: An American History, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts. 2. Bedau, H. A. (Ed.), 1998, The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies, Oxford University Press, New York. 3. Clarke, A.W. and Whitt, L. 2007, The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty (Library Binding), Northeastern University, Massachusetts. 4. Death Penalty, 2008, News Batch, from, www.newsbatch.com. 5. Delfino, M. and Day, M.E. 2008, Death Penalty USA: 2005 – 2006, MoBeta Publishing, Florida. 6. Dow, D.R. 2002, Machinery of Death: The Reality of Americas Death Penalty Regime, Routledge, New York. 7. Latzer, B. 2002, Death Penalty Cases, Second Edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Massachusetts. 8. OConnor, K. and Sabato, L J. 2007, American Government: Continuity and Change, 9th Edition, Pearson Education, New York. 9. Pfiffner, J. P. 2007, The Modern Presidency, Cengage Learning, Kentucky. 10. Russell, G.D. 1993, The Death Penalty and Racial Bias: Overturning Supreme Court Assumptions (Contributions in Legal Studies), Greenwood Press, Connecticut. 11. The Death Penalty in the United States, 2008, Prosecuting Attorney: The Clark County, from, www.clarkprosecutor.org. Read More