Some call it grandstanding. Others point to pre-election politicking. Whatever is behind the latest push to get state officials to reconsider the moratorium on the death penalty, it's short-sighted, says Jane Bohman, director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
The state's House Judiciary Committee took up the topic of repealing the moratorium at a hearing in Chicago last week that seemed to come out of left field. For eight years, lawmakers have been studying flaws in our criminal justice system that, in recent years, sentenced 18 innocent people to death. Next year, a legislative panel, will release their findings through the Capital Punishment Reform Study. Until then, Blagojevich has vowed to keep the moratorium in place.
So why the public pressure to repeal it now?
Enter Rep. Dennis Reboletti, of Elmhurst. Since joining the House Judiciary Committee, the law-and-order Republican has been beating the drum to reinstate the death penalty. The hearings aren't Reboletti's only means of garnering attention on the issue. He's also the sole sponsor of HR 969, a resolution introduced this spring that calls for lifting the moratorium because, among other reasons, "[c]riminals continue to murder people throughout the State of Illinois in spite of the existence."
Bohman concedes that Reboletti -- in pushing for the hearing, which featured tough testimony from state's attorney's in Cook and DuPage counties, Dick Devine and Joe Birkett -- has drawn attention. "This hearing was basically a showcase for prosecutors," she said.
And it didn't go without notice. The Daily Herald, in an editorial yesterday, urged the governor to quickly make up his mind on whether the death penalty stays or goes:
Keeping the middle ground of a moratorium is not the answer.
Three years ago, we said in this space: "This endless hand-wringing has reached the point of near-absurdity." Three years later, this still is true. We hope that it doesn't remain true three years or even two years from now.
While the frustration over a lack of action thus far may be real, Bohman said, "It shouldn't be frustration over the moratorium but frustration over a failed [criminal justice] system."
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