In a recent case before the Illinois Supreme Court (People v

In a recent case before the Illinois Supreme Court (People v. Hickey, 2001 Ill. LEXIS 108), Chief Justice Moses Harrison II and Justice Thomas Kilbride stated that death penalty convictions handed down before new death penalty reforms went into effect should be thrown out. "The procedures in capital cases prior to this court's adoption of the new rules was inherently unreliable and did not sufficiently protect a defendant's constitutional rights," said Kilbride. Harrison, who called the state's experience with capital punishment a "debacle," urged new trials, not just reduced sentences, for those sentenced to death before the system was revamped. The majority of the court rejected this view, but held that the court would review each death penalty case on its individual merits. In his dissent in a recent case regarding fairness of the death penalty in Illinois state Supreme Court Chief Justice Moses Harrison II stated: "If the capital punishment debacle of the last few years has taught us anything, however, it is that adherence to the formal process, as it existed under the old law, can produce results that seem rational but are, in fact, completely unreliable. ? . . . Our tolerance for prosecutorial gamesmanship and professional incompetence has evaporated. From now on, the success of prosecutors will be gauged by how well they cooperate in the search for truth and justice, not by the number of convictions they secure. The old priorities do not work. When convictions are prized above justice, innocent men are sentenced to die. It has happened too often in Illinois. It must stop.