Re: Robert Crimo pleads guilty

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

. . .

Do you have the death penalty in Illinois? I'm guessing not; the article
I read predicted he would never get out of prison but didn't take about
execution.

One of our governors who went to prison (George Ryan, Republican, for a
significant amount of bribe taking when he was Secretary of State
administering driver's services and an unqualified truck driver killed a
half dozen people) put a moratorium on the death penalty. It wasn't
constitutional but no one had standing to challenge it. Eventually the
legislature repealed it.

A notorious murder trial, the Ford Heights Four, was the political
scandal that led to ending the death penalty. A jury was chosen in
violation of the Sixth Amendment (prosecutors had used pre-emptory
challenges to eliminate blacks from the jury) and an exculpatory
eyewitness statement to police was withheld from the defense.

But there were other cases in which there had been a death penalty after
an unfair trial for various reasons, or when it had become obvious that
the defendants were actually innocent.

George Ryan ended up commuting or pardoning a great many men on death
row. I still think he was partly motivated to gain sympathy knowing the
federal prosecution he was facing.

Just think about how corrupt the justice system would have to be for a
politician in my state to be forced to do the right thing.