Illinois towards abolition

a commission in Illinois issued detailed advice to Republican Gov. George Ryan on improving the way the death penalty is administered in his state. Mr. Ryan created the bipartisan commission two years ago after imposing a moratorium on executions in the state.
Illinois, since reinstating capital punishment in 1977, had executed 12 people, while it had been forced to release 13 who were under sentence of death. Investigations by journalism students at Northwestern University and by the Chicago Tribune had revealed pervasive flaws in the state´s capital punishment system.
At the time he appointed the commission, Mr. Ryan said that "until I can be sure that no innocent man or woman is facing lethal injection, no one will meet that fate."
The commission´s report contains numerous recommendations, mostly sound and mostly unsurprising. They include -- among others -- videotaping interrogations, making fewer crimes eligible for the death penalty, asking a state board to review local prosecutors´ decisions to seek the death penalty, requiring judges to concur in death decisions by juries, and reining in the use of uncorroborated testimony by informants and eyewitnesses.
If enacted, such changes would significantly reduce the scope and randomness of capital punishment and significantly lower the risk of wrongful convictions and executions.
As the commission notes, however, they would not eliminate that risk. In fact, the report states clearly that the certainty Mr. Ryan demands is unattainable: "The Commission was unanimous in the belief that no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death."
The commission´s report offers ample reason for him to determine that old death sentences should not be carried out. It should also spur legislators, in Illinois and elsewhere, to reconsider whether future death sentences ought to be imposed.