In his first public debate on the death penalty outside...

In his first public debate on the death penalty outside the United States, former Illinois Governor George Ryan called for states that execute people all over the world to impose moratoria and take the time to study their capital punishment systems.
The former governor was the first in the United States, in January 2000, to impose a moratorium on executions after the number of people exonerated from the Midwestern state's death row, 13, exceeded the number of people put to death there since the re-introduction of the death penalty in 1977.
In a press conference in Rome organised by Hands Off Cain and the Rome-based September 11 association, Ryan recalled episodes of innocence, in particular Anthony Porter's case, that led him to impose this moratorium. Porter, a mentally-retarded man on death row for 16 years, had come within 48 hours of execution when journalism students from Illinois' North-Western University uncovered sufficient evidence for his exoneration.
Ryan said his ever-increasing doubts about the death penalty system were confirmed by a Herald Tribune investigation in November 1999 that revealed irregularities in the justice system leading to the review of hundreds of cases.
Moreover: "Thirty-three death row inmates had been represented by attorneys subsequently struck off the Bar register, 35 black inmates had been convicted by all-white juries, and 46 had been condemned on the basis of testimony by jailhouse snitches," Ryan said.
An ad hoc commission Ryan set up to study the state's death penalty system came up with 85 recommendations "which still didn't guarantee that no innocent would end up on death row, even if they had been passed into law." The Republican Senate however refused to act on legislation proposed by Ryan, himself a Republican, on the basis of these recommendations.
"That is why on January 10th this year I decided to commute the death sentences of 167 people on death row," Ryan said.
Despite the blanket commutation that won him the admiration of abolitionists everywhere, Ryan is not yet an abolitionist. Questioned whether he was against the death penalty in all cases or if he was still in favour in cases of clear guilt, Ryan responded:
"I still argue that question with myself, right till this minute, whether I'm for abolition or not. I still have doubts. I'm pretty close to abolition but there may be cases that I may be for the death penalty. Then again I see how bad the system is."