The Illinois legislature has passed legislation that would end the death penalty in that state; now Governor Pat Quinn must either sign or veto the bill. At this point, it’s a jump ball. As Quinn weighs his options, Attorney General Lisa Madigan has submitted a letter brimming with horror stories. Message: the sacred memory of the innocent victims demands a life for a life.
Former prosecutor, Mark Osler, believes Madigan has the issue exactly wrong. “The more heinous and despicable the crime committed by the offender,” he writes, “the more these victims’ family members wish to have nothing in common with him. They do not want to sink to his level, to replicate his actions by killing.”
Why the Legislature Is Right and Lisa Madigan Is Wrong About the Death Penalty
By Mark Osler
As Illinois Governor Pat Quinn continues to ponder a bill to abolish the death penalty, one document before him is a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In that letter, Madigan refers to several pending cases and urges the governor to veto that bill.
As a former prosecutor who now trains future prosecutors and works with family members of murder victims, I disagree with the Attorney General, even in the face of the gruesome circumstances she cites in her letter. The death penalty has failed in Illinois, and should not be resuscitated based on briefly-described anecdotes.
Madigan’s argument, when closely examined, supports neither the interests of victims nor the imperatives of justice.
First, Madigan’s underlying principle, that the most heinous murderers deserve no other sentence than death, is rooted in an ancient and wrong idea — that the life of a murderer can be extinguished to somehow avenge the killing of someone innocent and dearly loved. People who have actually lost a sister, a brother, a parent to murder often reject this crude equivalence, and even find it offensive.
The more heinous and despicable the crime committed by the offender, the more these victims’ family members wish to have nothing in common with him. They do not want to sink to his level, to replicate his actions by killing. That would move them a step toward who he is and a step away from who their loved ones were, people who loved and valued life, who were kind and good.
Moreover, the worse the crime committed by the offender, the less possible it is to say that the scales of justice can be balanced by taking that offender’s life. One of the cases Attorney General Madigan mentioned involved a total of five victims, three of them children. How can one possibly say that the life of one offender is just punishment for even a single life of those innocent victims? To make the life of the killer equivalent to that of the victim is an obscenity. There is no punishment “fit” to a crime such as that, and when Madigan states exactly that in her conclusion, it is against the very spirit of those who have been killed. The best we can do is to incapacitate the killers and honor the memories of those five victims, including those dear children, in a living, breathing, ongoing way by doing our utmost to prevent similar tragedies from befalling others.
As someone who studies prosecutions (and who remembers well my own experiences of holding lives in judgment), I recognize a second and equally dangerous fallacy in Madigan’s reliance on “worst cases.” She has identified exactly the dynamic — a narrow focus on the shocking facts of a case — that led to so many innocent people being placed on death row in Illinois. The bare truth is that it is in these worst, most compelling cases that we too often convict the wrong person in haste, because the cry for retribution is so strong.
When a child is shot, a policeman killed, a pregnant woman and her husband gunned down for someone’s thrills, we are justifiably incensed. However, that public mood creates tremendous pressure on public servants like Madigan to bring someone to trial, and that pressure has led too often to the pursuit of weak cases that led in the end to exoneration. It leads us right back to the scandal of innocents on death row that shocked us into action to reform the death penalty in the first place.
The Attorney General’s reliance on the most heinous cases certainly has political appeal, but it rests on two offensive ideas: That the life of the worst kind of killer equals that of an innocent, and that executing someone for these worst cases is worth the risk of killing a different kind of innocent — the type who have been exonerated in this place, in our time, to the shame of us all who participate in the always-imperfect machinery of criminal justice.
Friends of Justice 
I was a proponent of the death penalty for many years, but as I have matured, I realize that killing someone for a crime is not the thing to do. They suffer more by living life in captivity like the animals they are. I have seen too much injustice in Red River County, Texas and know that there are more courts, and more prosecutors out there that are like these, that rush to justice and convict anyone they possibly can, guilty or innocent. I now agree that I would not want to sink to the level of a killer by wanting his miserable awful life taken for someone that ment more to me than anything in this life. We should stop the death penalty now, and abolish it completely in the U.S. .
I understand you all want to share your opinion, and that’s fine. Please research the death penalty reforms that are currently in place in the state of Illinois and get back to me. One more thing: Have any one of you “walked the walk”? Well I have. My sister was murdered and I was part of the “system” for several years…and still am. Every day. I feel the pain and know what it takes. Please do your homework before you decide to tell everyone your opinion. No one should die needlessly. The reforms that are in place today are impressive. Again, research the subject and talk to someone who lives it-every day-then get back to me.
John, I don’t know what it’s like to lose a family member to violence, but I would like to know more about your experience as a victim of the murder of your sister, particularly did the “justice system” help in any ways–you’re still involved in it, you say. Of course, the grief and loss of your sister is not something that will ever go away, but in looking for a lofty concept of “Justice” for society, obviously not harming the victim(s) of crime further and helping them as much as possible is one of the most important things. Even if only the truly guilty criminal premeditated murderers were executed, there are still very many other reasons not to let the government kill people–but you have been a lot closer to the question than I.
On January 18, 2011, Senate Bill 3539 was passed by the Illinois General Assembly and sent to Governor Quinn for his signature. Quinn has not signed the bill yet and says that he wants to give it serious thought. He has met with anti-death penalty groups and has received unsolicited input from anti-death penalty celebrities such as Desmond Tutu, Sister Helen Prejean and Martin Sheen. On Thursday, 02-24-11, he met with victim families affected by the death penalty. I was there.
Before I continue, you must know our story:
http://www.statesattorney.org/index2/pdf/Reginald%20Mahaffey.pdf (A92127 – MAHAFFEY, REGINALD, N12780 – MAHAFFEY, JERRY)
George Ryan commuted the death sentences of the convicts who murdered JoEllen and Dean, and who tried to kill Rick. The two convicts are now serving life sentences. The one thing I have learned throughout the past 27 years is that anything can happen. It’s a remote possibility, but if either convict wins an appeal he can be retried. I want to have the death penalty on the books if that were to happen.
Aside from our own personal issue, I want to support the families who still have a horse in the race. There are currently 15 people on death row in Illinois.
People argue that the death penalty in Illinois is “broken”. The truth is that the death penalty statute has been significantly revised since 2002. It is much more difficult to sentence a person to death as indicated by the low number of people currently on death row. DNA is now used. Interrogations are videotaped.
All of the current death penalty cases have been appealed on various claims. This is normal. But here’s the interesting thing: None of the defendant’s appeals are based on claims of innocence. None of them are contesting their guilty verdict. The argument that innocent people will be executed in Illinois is no longer valid.
You need to really know this about SB3539-the bill that will abolish the death penalty in the state of Illinois. It was quickly tacked on as an amendment to an existing un-related bill, and passed during the lame duck session. The people who pushed this bill through had just been defeated in the November election and had yet to leave office. They were not accountable to anyone except themselves. I firmly believe that if this bill were introduced in Springfield today, it would not pass.
Also, the bill failed on the first vote. We understand that backroom deals relating to the budget were made. Minutes later, the bill passed.
In our opinion, Quinn needs to veto this bill and send it back for reconsideration and public hearings. I recommend that a referendum be placed on a future ballot so the people of Illinois can have real input. This decision is too big to be made by one man or a group of defeated politicians.
Meeting with a governor wasn’t new to my family. We gave it our best shot along with the other families in attendance. Quinn was polite, took a bunch of notes and was very uninformed as to the issue at hand.
Below you will find several links. One is a link to Quinn’s web site that you can use to send him a short message, asking him to veto SB3539. The second link is to an article that was written after the Mahaffey’s first trial.
Please educate yourself as to the details, history and people behind this issue before you jump to any decisions. Thank you.
Contact Governor Quinn: http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/Pages/ContacttheGovernor.aspx
Article: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-05-12/features/8501290663_1_ricky-bats-bed
SB 3539: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3539&GAID=10&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=&SessionID=76&SpecSess=&Session=&GA=96
John: Thanks for adding your experience and perspective to the discussion. I have never lost a loved one to murder so I lack standing to comment on your experience. I should point out, however, that I didn’t write the post. Mark Osler, the author, is a former federal prosecutor and a nationally recognized authority on the death penatly (something I am not). So you need to address your concerns to him.
Alan
John, I will pray for you, your wife, and Ricky, if I may. Even the most heinous criminals are still part of our society, and deserve justice; even though they may be guilty of a crime. How awful it must be for you and your family, though, waiting through 2 trials and appeals and decisions that were favourable and unfavourable. I can’t agree that the conclusion you are hoping for is best, for the reasons Osler gives, and some others; but I would hope that you and your family are growing lives in which the Mahaffeys take up a smaller and smaller part every day.
Sandra, you demonstrate the agape of a follower of the Way. I have never had a family member murdered. One of the main reasons I oppose capital punishment is that it’s so final. No saying “Oops” after the fact. I also resonate with Osler in his argument.