A group of retired state and federal judges is urging Gov

A group of retired state and federal judges is urging Gov. George Ryan to commute the death sentences of any inmate whose conviction was tainted by flaws in the state's capital punishment system.
In a letter to Ryan released Sunday, former Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Moses Harrison and 20 other judges stopped short of asking the governor to grant clemency to all inmates on Illinois' death row.
But they made it clear they were suggesting clemency for scores of inmates, listing the same problems with the system in Illinois raised by defence attorneys during the recently completed clemency hearings before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
"Examination of current death sentences reveals cases involving credible claims of coerced confessions, unreliable 'incentivised' testimony from jailhouse informants and purported accomplices, inexperienced and unqualified defence counsel, confusing jury instructions, mental retardation, and mental illness," they wrote.
Individually, some of the justices said that the system is so riddled with problems, so unfair, that the governor should grant blanket clemency.
"The only way to be fair, the only way to be just, the only way to be equal is for the governor to change the death sentences ... to life without the possibility of parole," said R. Eugene Pincham, a former state appellate judge and longtime critic of the death penalty.
Retired state appellate Judge Anthony Scariano said that while there must be changes in the law to protect defendants in the future, "clemency is the proper way to address the problems of the past."
Sunday's letter is part of a public relations battle between death penalty proponents and opponents. Both sides are trying to influence Ryan. The governor must decide on the clemency requests of 142 death row inmates before he leaves office next month.