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suburban Chicago girl despite no physical evidence and the fact that another man in prison took credit for the crime. Cruz was on Death Row until being cleared on appeal and now is seeking a pardon from George Ryan, a move necessary for him to collect money from the state for wrongful imprisonment.
The Cruz case weighed heavily on a commission appointed by the governor to study changes to the state's death penalty system. The panel recommended 85 reforms, which the Illinois General Assembly may address in the fall legislative session that begins in November.
The governor has not yet said specifically whether he intends to make the most dramatic change of all: commutation. In early September, Ryan said a decision to commute death sentences would have to be "for everybody or for nobody." During that same meeting with reporters, the governor said, "I don't know how I could pick and choose.''
In nearly all of the cases before the Prisoner Review Board, inmates are arguing that they might not have received the ultimate punishment had some of the reforms Ryan is proposing been in place. Other inmates maintain they were railroaded by overzealous prosecutors and, in some cases, by police who elicited confessions through use of torture.
About half of the inmates put on Death Row were prosecuted by the Cook County state's attorney's office, including Kidd and Allen. Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine has implored Ryan not to use his pardon power to undo en masse what judges and juries deemed the proper punishment in some of the state's worst crimes.
"We're absolutely opposed to any blanket treatment of these cases,'' Devine spokesman John Gorman said. "It would be grossly unfair to these victims' families who have had the emotional scab torn off them by these hearings. We believe each and every one of these cases should be judged on its own merits and that if the governor treats these in the cavalier and flippant way he has threatened to, he'll have broken faith with the people of the state of Illinois."
But death penalty critics like Elliott believe Illinois and perhaps other states across the nation have broken faith with the ideals of justice. Ryan was absolutely right in imposing a moratorium on executions and is worthy of a Nobel should he follow through on a mass commutation that could prompt other states to do the same thing, Elliott said.
"What's scary is Illinois' capital punishment system is not worse than Florida's. It's not worse than Texas'. It's probably a little better. It really gives you pause whether or not we've ever executed innocent people in other states,'' Elliott said. "If we get commutations out of Illinois, it will put some wind behind our sails and will allow us to move forward in other states."
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