For nearly two weeks, the details of the most gruesome...

For nearly two weeks, the details of the most gruesome murders in recent Illinois history have been replayed for the public in a marathon set of clemency hearings that death penalty opponents now believe may have backfired and hurt their cause.
The hearings, which are being held for nearly every inmate on death row, were set in motion by Governor George Ryan, who suspended all executions about three years ago because of flaws in the criminal justice system.
But the procedural flaws discussed at the hearings have been overwhelmed by the litany of bloody horrors, and the Republican governor himself has become the target of bitter attacks by the relatives of murder victims.
''The pain and passion of these families is deafening,'' said Larry Marshall, a Northwestern University law professor who has been a driving force in exposing problems with the state's death penalty. ''It's so overwhelming that people are forgetting all the problems that got us here.''
So overwhelming, in fact, that Chicago's two major newspapers have urged Ryan to stop the hearings. ''Halt the anguish, Gov. Ryan,'' implored a Chicago Tribune editorial. ''Ryan's hearings cruel and unusual,'' a Chicago Sun-Times editorial was headlined.
In the space of a week, the public heard once again about: a couple who shot and killed a woman, cut her baby from her womb, and killed two of her other children; two brothers who beat a sleeping couple to death with baseball bats; a father who tortured his mute, severely retarded stepdaughter for five years, until she died; a man who killed a couple after telling them to have their last kiss; and a man who took eight women to remote locations and stripped, bound, and murdered them.
''I can't imagine the public has heard such a parade of horrors combined into such a short time period in American history,'' said John Gorman, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney.
Defence lawyers and death penalty opponents acknowledged they could not overcome the words of the family members.
''I do think that this is one of those occasions where there are some important pressing arguments about due process, fairness,'' said Jane Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty. ''But it's hard to put that in the forefront in the face of what these families are saying.''
The same phenomenon happens at trial, Marshall said. ''Raw pain can obscure any meaningful assessment of the facts and the evidence.''
Last month, Ryan suggested that he might even grant blanket clemency to all 159 people on death row. But the governor backed away from those comments this week.