So What If The People Of Illinois Want A Death Penalty

13 Jan, 2003 by John Hawkins

Print this article Font size -16+

So What If The People Of Illinois Want A Death Penalty: In case you haven’t heard, outgoing governor George H. Ryan of Illinois decided to thwart the will of the people of Illinois by commuting the sentence of “every inmate on Illinois’ Death Row.”

“Declaring the state’s capital punishment system “haunted by the demon of error,” Gov. George Ryan on Saturday commuted the sentences of every inmate on Illinois’ Death Row, the most dramatic step by a governor on the issue in U.S. history.

With two days left as governor, Ryan declared that most of the state’s 156 condemned prisoners will now serve terms of life in prison without parole. Three Death Row inmates, whose cases Ryan said raised particular fairness concerns, were granted 40-year prison terms, allowing the possibility of release in several years. And 12 additional people – who had once been sentenced to Death Row but are awaiting new sentencings – will receive life in prison without parole.”

This is a staggering and repulsive abuse of power. It’s nothing less than a “screw-you” to the people of Illinois who obviously want a death penalty, the police officers who’ve risked their lives enforcing the law, and most of all, it’s a slap at the victim’s familes.

You know, now that Ryan has actually given these death row monsters a break, I’d like to see he has to say to the victim’s families today. Ryan should have to look in the face of a small girl and explain why he gave a break to the guy that killed her daddy. Let him explain his decision to a mother who had her child raped and murdered by one of these animals. Her kid is dead while these wastes of plasma who took their lives are going to live on for decades.

All of this is because Ryan is worried that they might execute an innocent person. Well, there might be innocent people sitting in Illinois jails serving decades of hard time. In fact, I’m sure there are innocent people in prison in Illinois because there is no such thing as a flawless system. So why doesn’t Ryan give pardons to every criminal in Illinois? That makes about as much as sense as leniency to all these pieces of garbage who were on death row.

I think Peoria County State’s Atty. Kevin Lyons summed it up fairly well when he said,

“It was so offensive for him to compare himself to Lincoln and say, ‘I am a friend to these men on Death Row. My reply is, yes, your Excellency, you certainly are. Now go home before you make any more friends who are murdering the good people of Illinois.”

***Update***: Here’s just one story from the Washington Times about some of the people George Ryan spared…

“Sometimes, 4-year-old Jordan Evans tells his little brother, Elijah, about their mother,” the 1998 Associated Press story reads. ” ‘Our mom’s name was Debbie,’ ” Jordan’s grandfather heard him say one day. “And she was good.”

Jordan will never know his mother, who was brutally murdered the very night he was born. But thanks to Gov. George Ryan – who issued blanket commutations to all 156 prisoners on death row on Saturday, just two days before leaving office – the sentences of two of the predators responsible for her murder, Jacqueline Williams and Fedell Caffey, were commuted to life imprisonment.

One night in November 1995, Jordan and Elijah’s pregnant mother, Debbie Evans, was brutally murdered by Williams and Caffey, who invaded her suburban Chicago apartment. The killers stabbed Miss Evans in the throat and shot her in the head. Then, as she lay dying, they tore Elijah from the womb. They stabbed Elijah’s 10-year-old sister, Samantha, to death. Then, they kidnapped his 8-year-old brother, Joshua, whose corpse was found in an alley the following day. Williams and Caffey left Jordan behind; when police found him, he was stained with his mother’s blood.

…”George Ryan broke the system when he commuted the sentences of all convicted murder[ers],” declared Sam Evans, Debbie Evans’ father and Samantha and Joshua’s grandfather. “I have nothing but contempt and disgust for a man who abused the powers that the State of Illinois granted him.”

Let Ryan look Sam Evans in the eye and tell him why he gave a break to the animals that killed his daughter. Then, let Ryan explain to Josh Evans why he decided to help out the people who cut Josh’s mother open like a fish and then murdered his brother and sister. We get all this concern for these cold blooded killers — how about a little compassion for the people who were murdered and their families?