Umm… Being betrayed by their Governor who promised to look carefully at all these cases and then rubber stamped them all regardless of circumstance? Waking up every day knowing that Kayla’s killer is alive and well, living off the public dime?
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Read my posts. Where do I ever say that I think killing people is fun? Obviously you have some passion about this subject, but I fail to see why your feelings are allowed to be aired while the families of victims is called grandstanding. While you wave off the feelings of crime victims as an appeal to sentimentality, you aren’t exactly making your arguments out of pure reason either are you?
Insofar as the state respecting the families wishes thing: AFAIK victims’ families are usually allowed to make statements at the trial, and they certainly are at press conferences. I have heard of cases where the family members asked that the death penalty not apply, but I have no cite for you. In no case that I know of has the family ever been given the opportunity to dictate punishment. Nor have I ever said that they should be allowed that power. The courts have that power, and in the case of clemency, the gov. The difference in the way they handled these cases was that the courts looked at each case individually, while Ryan promised to, but apparently didn’t.
Now, for the record, whether or not the death penalty in general is justified is a separate issue from whether any or all these inmates deserved clemency. If I could change the law so that the death penalty would no longer be an option for future cases, I would. What I would not do, however, is change the verdicts the courts have imposed without examining each case individually.
How were they betrayed? The guy is doing life without parole, what’s the problem? The family simply has no right to demand anything further. As to the “public dime” wheeze-- it costs more to kill them than it does to keep them alive.
Fair enough, I know a lot of people who have told me that they enjoy seeing criminals executed, who joke about it, who mock the condemned, but I had no justification for lumping you in with those people so I apologize.
The governor did not have time to look at each case individually, and the fact that at least ten percent of those who were on death row were factually innocent is enough to show that the DP system in Illinois cannot be trusted at all. Can yoou guarantee that not one more innocent person remained on death row? How could you possibly know? How could the state take any chance at all that an innocent person might be executed?
Please explain to me exactly how the family is being harmed. The perpetrator of the crime is doing life without parole. How is that unjust? It doesn’t matter how the family feels about it, it’s none of their business. We don’t base jurisprudence on the bloodthirsty feelings of victims. Victims can be irrational. Justice should be based on reason, not emotion. I referred the trotting out of victims as “grandstanding” because it is a cheap attempt to play on sentimentality rather than reason. None of the families business?? Grandstanding ? We seems to have some very sick individuals in here!!!
The family believes that justice equals execution. They believe that life in prison is a lesser punishment. The state declared that the perp would be executed, i.e. that justice would be done according to their beliefs. Now, Ryan has conferred on this guy a lesser sentence. Therefore they feel betrayed.
Yeah, I do know that it costs more to execute than to keep somone in prison for life because of the appeals process. Ironically Rissley had already appealed his case all the way to Illinois Supreme Court. So in this case, the cost will actually be pretty close to the cost of executing him plus the cost of maintaining this guy for life.
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It’s the “I didn’t have time” argument I find wholly unconvincing actually. He has had the reports from his clemency board for some time. Either he looked at individual cases or he did not, and we know he managed to examine the cases of the four men he pardoned, right? Perhaps he did run out of time. Maybe he only got through inmate number 73. Am I to suppose that in none of those cases he found an instance where commutation was unwarranted? I’m afraid I simply do not buy that argument. Being distrustful of Ryan has become something of a habit over the past four years, but it certainly looks fishy to me. I certainly haven’t seen reports that he spent the past few weeks holed up pulling all-nighters to try to review all the cases either.
I merely meant that it was an easier choice than trying to justify granting clemency in some cases and not others, that’s all. In any case, everybody seems to be talking more about this than about anything else that has happened over his term of public service. All things considered that’s probably a good thing for him as well
I don’t see much so far that indicates that the posters who have been condemning the Governor’s action have read the report. Much of the raging and gnashing of teeth going on here might be resolved by reading the report of the Governor’s commission. It can be found at www.idoc.states.il.us./ccp/reports/commission_report/ and a summary at www.state.il.us./defender/gcdp.html.
As far as the Governor being a corrupt bad man, as a resident of a neighboring, but very boring, state let me say that we expect the Governor of Illinois to be corrupt and would not know what to think if he were not.
Good TV seems to involve a view at the close of any murder trial of a panorama of the victims friends and relatives screaming in rage and demanding the defendant’s blood right here and right now. Any discussion of the supposed rights of the victim of murder, his friends, relatives and acquaintances need to start by making the point that we are supposedly running a rational system aimed at securing retribution for the whole community–not just those who have a personal stake in the thing. It has been some time since we indorsed vendetta but that is just what the people who are saying that the victim’s family has been betrayed are perilously close to advocating.
The Governor’s commission was not made up of a bunch of fuzzy headed opponents of capital punishment. It was weighted with prosecutors and other people who were at least in principle in favor of the death sentence. The commission concluded that the capital sentence system in Illinois was not even handed and was not reliable. The commission came up with an extensive list of things that needed to be done to make the system even handed and reliable. That report was submitted last April after more than a year of study. The legislature failed to act on the recommendations.
The point is this–a blue ribbon commission, whose findings have not been attacked by any reliable body or person, concluded that the Illinois system was not doing justice and could not do justice. If the apparatus that is supposed to pick out the criminal defendants who need to be put to death is not doing that job in a reliable manner how can the conclusions of that apparatus be accepted, especially when there is no ability to correct unjustice if apparatus’s conclusions are found mistaken? The only rational thing for the Governor to do, all other options having been exhausted and with time running out, was to commute all death sentences and to lump those deserving of death with those who had been unjustly sentenced to death on the view that it was the least that could be done to prevent injustice.
I agree… an easier choice. But maybe that’s a good thing. We know a jury can screw these things up… why would the rushed opinion of a single man be any better? It would have been a bangup job at best. A blanket commute may not be a desirable solution but imho to change the system takes drastic measures (change it because it’s faulty, not because I don’t agree with it). I don’t buy the ‘let 10 men go free’ line but I tend to think 150 in a box is worth the chance (which I think is rather good) of one innocent life.
Also I agree… this reeks of publicity stunt and while at first I assumed this would be bad publicity (at least within his own party) it’s obvious from the posts here that compared to his history it’s actually good cover. For the record I’m not defending Ryan. I personally believe it was the right decesion, I’m not quite as convinced he made it for the right reasons.
Off to bed for me… nice chattin with ya
Can someone explain to me why justice = execution? I’ve been trying real hard to wrap my head around this equation and it just ain’t clicking.
Yesterday, I saw on ABC news the mother and grandmother of one of the victims whose (alledged?) killer had a commuted sentence. These women were in tears because the man who they thought had done the crime wasn’t going to be put to death. Now I’m definitely not trying to belittle their pain or grief. because even just imagining one of my loved ones getting murdered makes my blood flow in reverse, but I can not understand their reaction at all.
In five months I’m going to be a vet. Euthanasia (lethal injection) is standard practice in that field. Sadly, I’ve killed almost a dozen animals over the course of my training; I say this to convey that I’m not a stranger to the process of taking precious life. On many occasions, I’ve gotten to see how amazingly swift and painless that kind of execution is. Death comes in only a few seconds, in less time it takes to breathe in and out. To dispatch a criminal that way and call it just retribution is one of the stupidest ideas ever conjured up by a human being. (This is my opinion, I know, but damnit it’s an informed opinion.) If lethal injection compares at all to what I’ve done to dogs and cats, it has got to be the softest form of vengenance next to giving the criminal a bus ticket to Las Vegas and a free pass to the shrimp buffet.
Crusty-hearted scumbags who don’t give a fuck about living anyway get the same treatment that unwanted cats get? All that means to me is that the death penalty is not only immoral. It’s also stupid. It doesn’t come anywhere close to getting an eye for an eye.
I truly feel for the victims’ families, but I honestly feel that their grief over “lost justice” is directed at the wrong thing.
I’ve been thinking about Ryan’s actions since I heard about them yesterday morning and watched his speech in the afternoon; this just occurred to me as I was reading your post:
I think Ryan wanted to go with prudence on this one.
If he went through each individual case, found some that were innocent, pardoned them, and left the rest to be executed, he still could not be sure that no innocent man was still awaiting execution. Look at the 17 who were freed from death row: they went through the appeals process, had their cases reviewed numerous times, and still, until that last decision granting their freedom, were deemed “guilty” and deserving a state sanctioned death. The courts in Illinois in numerous death penalty cases fucked up royally; Ryan prevented them from fucking up in the same manner again concerning the 150-odd persons on death row.
At least this way we can be absolutely positive that no innocent person (of those whose sentences were commuted) will be executed.
Latasha Pulliam strangled a 6-yr old neighbor after luring her to her Chicago apartment, where she and her male companion raped the girl.
Edward Spreitzer kidnapped, murdered, and mutilated a lady in 1981. The victim was one of 17 women who were sexually assaulted and killed by Spreitzer and his friends.
Hector Nieves beat a homeless man over an arugument about the victim’s refusal to give the murderer a dollar to buy wine.
No, the victims families are not being harmed. Right.
Well, I suppose their desire for revenge will go unsatisfied, but justice is still being done.
They are still convicts and they will still spend the rest of their lives in jail for killing the victims’ loved ones. And while we should take into the consideration the feelings of the families, I think the feelings of the innocent men who were on death row and later declared innocent should be considered as well.
And I think you are forgetting the case of Dennis Williams , who was convicted of killing a gas station attendant and a female customer, although not before raping her. The families of those victims deserve their vengence too, no?
Not by the governor. The state’s job is to permanently remove such perps from society. The state has done so. The family is not entitled to blood, and they are not, in any way, being injured by being denied blood.
For those who want to keep flogging the victims card, if a family asks the state not to execute an inmate who has done them great harm, should the state commute the sentence or kill the guy anyway? If you’re going to say fry them anyway, then don’t pretend you care about the feelings of the victims.
And what, pray, of the pain of families of innocent men condemned to die? How many years did the mothers of these men watch the clock tick away? How many times did thier children look at the calender and think “101 days till he dies”.
They were innocent. Jesus H., what part of that word don’t you understand! They didn’t…as in DID NOT…do it!
Now thats bad enough. Mistakes can be made, pencil have erasers. But the human pustule who tortured a confession out of an innocent man…words fail me.
Those freaking monsters (although still human beings) should have their sentences commuted so people such as Dennis Williams (who I’m sure if this discussion occurred several years ago you would have referred to as monster) don’t accidentally get killed by the state.
And where are you getting that information about the death row inmates? The two-page list (w/ pictures!) in todays’ Chi. Tribune? Or, so you dont’ accidentally say the name of someone who is innocent, are you individually researching the cases, proving beyond a reasonable doubt their guilt, then having your research reviewed by numerous legal experts, judges, and state officials so you can come out on the side of the “victims”?
Prove to me that all those “murderers” you have listed are guilty. For all you know, you’re spouting of the names of people who are innocent. But, thankfully, due to Gov. Ryan, they have years in which to prove their innocence because the state is no longer going to execute them.
Again, there really are two separate issues here. The death penalty system in Illinois is definitely broken. It should be repaired or abolished. I vote the latter. Nevertheless, the contention that all convictions under the system are flawed does not necessarily follow. Each conviction should have been examined based on their own merits, as promised when Ryan set up his clemency boards. (I’m not sure by your post whether you realize that these were separate from the panel he put together to study the death penalty as a whole.)
Diogenes the Cynic
This bit you keep posting about commuting the sentences when the families want it makes no sense at all. Nobody has yet argued that the state should go ask the families what they want and then do that (but only if it’s execution of course.) Obviously there will always be victims who want their wrongdoers to get a sentence other than what the court pronounces. Neither I nor anyone else I have seen has advocated that they get to make that decision.
I only poked into this thread because of one case where commutation is manifestly unwarranted, where I think that feelings of betrayal are easily justified. Ryan used his power sweepingly rather than judiciously, even after giving families his assurance that he would carefully weigh the cases.
You can’t say the feelings of the victims matter if they agree with you and don’t matter if they don’t. Your family that you keep trumpeting has not been “betrayed.” It’s just cheap demagoguery to keep bringing them up. I’m sure the families in those seventeen cases where the guy didn’t fucking do it wanted blood too. There were wrong though, weren’t they? If we can’t tell who the guilty people are then it’s wrong to kill anybody. Why is that so hard to understand? What’s so damn unjust about a murderer getting life without parole, anyway? Do you think that’s a barrel of laughs for those guys? Do you want to do life without parole? Life without parole sucks, man. I’d rather ride the lightning, myself.
BTW, what should happen to those cops who tortured confessions out of innocent people? Should they get the death penalty too?
They are guilty. Do you have ANY evidence that Fedell Caffey didn’t kill that woman, rip the baby from her womb, and then kill her two other chilidren? Do you have any evidence at all???
