A month ago, a bill that would end the death penalty in Illinois (SB 3539)passed out of committee. But before the bill could come to a vote, the legislature adjourned. As of yesterday, this lame-duck legislature is back in session.
If you live in Illinois: tell your representatives that you support ending the death penalty.If you don't live in Illinois: contact the governor! Let Governor Pat Quinn know that the whole nation is looking for his leadership now.
Illinois has had a moratorium for 10 years. What have we learned from it? Only that the death penalty still risks executing innocent people. It doesn't do anything to keep communities safer. It is applied unfairly. It costs millions more than alternatives. And, despite what we are sometimes told, the death penalty fails to meet the needs of murder victims' families.
Death penalty supporters often say that we owe it to the families to execute the person who took their loved one away. We are told that is justice.
But as death penalty to be meaningful, justice should be swift and sure. The death penalty is neither.
Jennifer Bishop Jenkins and Kathleen Bishop Becker know this from experience, both having lost someone they loved to murder. In a recent op-ed, they describe why the Illinois death penalty remains "a harmful albatross for victims' families":
In capital cases, family members are forced to endure years of trials and appeals that last at least twice as long as in non-capital cases, not to mention a long string of possible reversals because the system didn't get it right. The offender becomes a household name and the victim is forgotten. We are frequently denied legal finality. The state ends up spending millions, which are then not available to help victims or family members. We haven't executed anyone in over 10 years and won't anytime soon. Victims' families are the ones caught in limbo.
For these reasons, dozens of murder victims' family members presented a letter to the Illinois Legislature and testified before the House Judiciary Committee in November calling for passage of SB 3539, a bill to repeal the death penalty and use the millions saved for much-needed services for victims' families. We assure you, families like ours need these services much more desperately than we could ever need the death penalty.
Today there is a rally at the Illinois state capitol in Springfield. Four family members of murder victims will be there to ask lawmakers to end this false promise that is the death penalty.
You can stand with these victims of violence, even if you can't make it to Springfield, whether you live in Illinois or not.