Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were two of the so-called Ford Heights Four, a south suburb in Cook County. The primary testimony against them came from a seventeen-year-old girl, with an IQ of less than sixty who police said was an accomplice in the murder of a couple. Seventeen years later, Jimerson, Williams and two others serving lesser sentences were released after new DNA tests revealed that none of them were linked to the crime. Later that year, two other men confessed to the crime and were [put in] prison. Seventeen years! Seventeen years! Can you imagine serving even one day on Death Row for a crime you did not commit? -- Gov. George Ryan
I met Verneal Jimerson back in 1997, while I was in law school in Illinois. He's one of eighteen men like Rolando Cruz who had been sentenced to death in Illinois in the last quarter-century by judges and juries based on evidence they thought was beyond a reasonable doubt. Innocent men each, condemned to die, rotting for years on death row. As Gov. Ryan said, "For that to happen even once is unjust. For that to happen thirteen times is shameful and beyond belief."
I remember being incredibly affected by Jimerson's story, as he told it to us in that seminar room, of knowing he hadn't committed the crime but not being able to prove it, with the combination of a coerced confession from a purported accomplice, erroneous identification by purported eyewitness, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel all leading to his wrongful conviction.
Illinois was in crisis. Governor Ryan, a Republican, established an independent Commission on Capital Punishment in 2000, charged with the task of "study[ing] and review[ing] the administration of the capital punishment process in Illinois to determine why that process has failed in the past, resulting in the imposition of death sentences upon innocent people" and "to examine ways of providing safeguards and making improvements in the way law enforcement and the criminal justice system carry out their responsibilities in the death penalty process--from investigation through trial, judicial appeal and executive review."
They filed this massive report with a list of eighty-five recommendations, but a report doesn't become law on its own.
It takes lawmakers willing to lead. WaPo, earlier this year:
Obama wrote in his recent memoir that he thinks the death penalty "does little to deter crime." But he supports capital punishment in cases "so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment."
In proposing changes, Obama met repeatedly with officials and advocates on all sides. He nudged and cajoled colleagues fearful of being branded soft on crime, as well as death-penalty opponents worried that any reform would weaken efforts to abolish capital punishment.
Obama's signature effort was a push for mandatory taping of interrogations and confessions. It was opposed by prosecutors, police organizations and Ryan's successor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who said it would impede investigators.
Working under the belief that no innocent defendant should end up on death row and no guilty one should go free, Obama helped get the bill approved by the Senate on a 58 to 0 vote. When Blagojevich reversed his position and signed it, Illinois became the first state to require taping by statute.
"Obviously, we didn't agree all the time, but he would always take suggestions when they were logical, and he was willing to listen to our point of view. And he offered his opinions in a lawyerly way," said Carl Hawkinson, the retired Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "When he spoke on the floor of the Senate, he spoke out of conviction. You knew that, whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him."
The Associated Press, today:
While an Illinois state senator, Obama was key in getting the state's notorious death penalty laws changed, including a requirement that in most cases police interrogations involving capital crimes must be recorded. ...
"Without Barack's energy, imagination and commitment I do not believe the very substantial and meaningful reforms that became law in Illinois would have taken place," said author Scott Turow, a member of the state commission that recommended many of the changes.
...Obama was at the center of the emotional debate.
Legislators and lobbyists who worked with him describe a lawmaker who was personally involved, refused to abandon some needed changes but also demanded compromises from both law enforcement and death penalty critics.
A proposal to require that police record interrogations of murder suspects was opposed by police, prosecutors and the Democratic governor and considered so touchy it was separated from other legislation. It also was the issue that garnered Obama's special interest.
"I thought the prosecutors and law enforcement would kill it," said Peter Baroni, who was then a Republican aide to the Illinois Senate's judiciary committee. "He (Obama) was the one who kept people at the table."
He kept them at the table, kept negotiating but he never abandoned his progressive principles:
The idea that people might be executed for crimes they did not commit also enraged him. "At minimum, we should agree that innocent people should not be put to death by the state. At minimum," Obama declared icily during one floor debate.
Obama saw the issue of police interrogations as key.
Among the men released from death row "a consistent pattern was the faulty confession," argued Obama. "It struck me that this was the hardest piece of the puzzle but the one that would ultimately make the most difference and have the most long-lasting effect."
Participants in the negotiations describe Obama as standing firm on some issues, but willing to compromise on others.
They cite his refusal to narrow the law so that only a suspect's confession had to be recorded, insisting that the entire interrogation be put on tape, so a suspect cannot be threatened or beaten off camera.
"That was a first point at which he could have taken the easy route. He said no, we're not doing it that way," recalled Kathryn Saltmarsh, who represented the Illinois Appellate Defender's office in the negotiations.
On other things he was willing to compromise.
He went along with allowing departments to make audio recordings if they couldn't afford video equipment and training, and for a judge to allow an unrecorded statement in some cases -- but then prosecutors would have to prove it had been obtained without coercion.
The end result? This is what the AP's lede was today:
Barack Obama can honestly claim to have made a difference on a matter of life and death.
Talk is cheap. What counts is getting substantive progressive reform passed into law, and time and time again, Obama has done it on behalf of groups for whom no one else was fighting.