Prosecutors pan Quinn’s abolishing death penalty

JIM SUHR, Associated Press

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — Prosecutors across Illinois rebuked Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday for scrapping the state’s death penalty, insisting it robs them of a valued tool in enticing murder suspects to plead guilty and the severest punishment to apply in killings deemed especially gruesome.

Advertisement

Quinn’s repeal accompanied the Chicago Democrat’s commuting to life terms the sentences of all 15 inmates remaining on Illinois’ death row. A Quinn spokeswoman said he also will commute the sentence of anyone who might get the death penalty before the repeal takes hold July 1, taking the option out of prosecutors’ hands in some big cases yet to be tried.

Among them: that of Christopher Vaughn, who has pleaded not guilty in the 2007 shootings death of his wife and three children, whose bodies were found in their sport utility vehicle in the Chicago area’s Will County. With the stroke of Quinn’s pen, the county’s prosecutor, James Glasgow, said he would halt his pursuit of the death penalty against Vaughn and in another case.

“Today is a victory for murderers across Illinois,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin, convinced that murder suspects free of the prospect of a death sentence might see multiple killings as freebies, knowing the worst they can get is life behind bars regardless of the body count.

“While prosecutors across the state will continue to seek justice, the reality is that for certain crimes that are so horrific and evil that they shock the conscience of the community, the people of this state will be denied a full measure of justice,” added Berlin, a 23-year prosecutor whose office lost its pursuit last month of a death sentence retrial of a man convicted of killing his teenage stepdaughter.

State lawmakers voted in January to abandon capital punishment, and Quinn spent two months reflecting on the issue, speaking with prosecutors, crime victims’ families, death penalty opponents and religious leaders. On Wednesday, he resisted the push by prosecutors and some victims’ families to veto the legislation, ultimately concluding “our system of imposing the death penalty is inherently flawed.”

Illinois executions have been on hold since former Gov. George Ryan put a moratorium on them in 2000. In 2003, Ryan cleared death row of its 171 inmates, commuting most to life in prison and freeing four inmates whose guilt was in doubt, partly explaining Quinn’s move Wednesday.

“It’s not possible to create a perfect, mistake-free death penalty system,” Quinn said.

Advertisement*

Prosecutors had lobbied Quinn not to take from them an important bargaining chip, the threat of death to get guilty pleas from suspects who opt for life in prison rather than take their chance with a jury. Take that off the table, prosecutors said, and there’ll be more trials at taxpayer expense because defendants facing only the possibility of life behind bars would be less inclined to deal.

While Quinn weighed the repeal, the top prosecutor in central Illinois’ Peoria County has handled new murder cases as if there was no capital punishment.

“If there’s any silver lining to (Wednesday’s repeal), it clarifies the law’s status because for the last 10 years, this Kabuki dance we’ve been engaged in about the death penalty has caused jurors to say, ‘Death penalty? I didn’t even know we still had it,'” Kevin Lyons said.

On Wednesday, Lyons said the repeal forces him to halt pursuing the death penalty in a case that began before the Legislature sent Quinn the repeal, that of Aunterrio Barney, who has pleaded not guilty to setting an April 2010 house fire in Peoria that killed four people, including a 2-year-old boy.

“(The repeal) takes away a very strong tool from the box of prosecutors, and that is leverage,” Lyons said. “To the person who committed multiple murders and is sitting in a county jail, today Illinois told them, ‘We’re going to go easier on you from this day forward.’ That’s not the message that should be sent.

“We’re not talking about whether we change the speed limit or give a second chance to a DUI offender. We’re talking about people who end lives.”