The Education of Governor Ryan

January 13, 2003

Nothing became Gov. George Ryan's term in office like his leaving it. As the clock ticked out on the Illinois governor's last days in office, he made a series of dramatic announcements that emptied his state's death row.

We can only join in his hope that this sweeping, and almost shocking, gesture leads the rest of the country to reconsider whether America wants to continue to be in the business of state-sanctioned death.

 Mr. Ryan, who opened a new national discussion of the death penalty in 2000 when he declared a moratorium on executions, commuted the death sentences of 163 men and 4 women to prison terms last weekend and freed four other men. It was a strange end to a political life that he began as an enthusiastic champion of capital punishment.

 As governor, he was stunned by a series of close calls in which men on death row were found to be innocent - in one case just 48 hours before a scheduled execution. He determined that the death penalty was being imposed arbitrarily - a person found guilty of murder in a rural district of Illinois, he pointed out, was five times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who committed murder in Chicago. The population on death row was overwhelmingly African-American and 35 prisoners had been condemned by all-white juries. Many of the condemned men and women were represented by incompetent or less-than-attentive attorneys.

 No one will ever know how much Mr. Ryan's dramatic finale was affected by a second factor: a corruption scandal relating to his years as the Illinois secretary of state, a mess that destroyed his political career and for which he is expected to be indicted. Death penalty supporters are bound to claim that he was attempting to seize the moral high ground with a big gesture. We cannot look inside his heart. We do know his actions over the weekend were not the product of sudden desperation, but a gradual and painful re-education.

The four men Mr. Ryan pardoned outright had been condemned based on confessions elicited in a notorious Chicago police station that used torture to prod confessions from suspects. The others will continue to serve long sentences.

Nevertheless, many members of the public will be horrified at the idea of showing any mercy whatsoever to some of the clearly guilty people involved. One man murdered a mother and her children, and ripped a full-term fetus from the woman's womb. And no one can be completely comfortable with this sort of sweeping use of the governor's right to pardon.

Mr. Ryan's conversion was helped along by the State Legislature, which consistently refused to consider any of the laws he promoted in an attempt to rationalize the death penalty system. It is hard to understand why supporters of capital punishment would not be eager to make sure that an innocent person is never executed. But attempts to provide everyone accused of a capital crime with competent legal defense and access to DNA evidence continue to fall short.

In Washington, the Innocence Protection Act languishes in committee despite the support of more than half the House members.

 This page has never seen the need to go there at all. The satisfaction of retribution that the death penalty supplies can never outweigh the danger of unfair or erroneous application as long as it exists. Virtually every country on the planet has rejected capital punishment as barbaric.

Perhaps Governor Ryan, in the tortured end to his political career, can help lead the nation to a similar conclusion.

Ill. Governor Praised, Vilified

  By Robert E. Pierre

 CHICAGO, Jan. 10 -- A conservative Republican from a staid Midwestern state, outgoing Illinois Gov. George Ryan has become the unlikely poster boy for reforming capital punishment.

   To the chagrin of prosecutors and glee of death penalty opponents, Ryan today pardoned four men who he said had been beaten into confessing to murders they did not commit. He chastised prosecutors, judges and legislators for looking the other way in the face of overwhelming evidence that the capital punishment system is broken.

    With a second major death penalty speech scheduled for Saturday afternoon, Ryan has hinted strongly that he will commute many of the death sentences of more than 150 inmates on Illinois death row. "The system has proved itself to be wildly inaccurate, unjust, unable to separate the innocent from the guilty and, at times, racist," Ryan said at a news conference here at DePaul University.

    Ryan has been hailed by death penalty opponents around the world for his actions -- he imposed the nation's first moratorium on executions three years ago. But critics  say the governor is merely trying to deflect attention from his  political troubles. Prosecutors contend that Ryan, a pharmacist, is failing crime victims.

   "For the governor to grant pardons to these convicted murderers is outrageous and unconscionable," State's Attorney Richard A. Devine said. "By his actions today, the governor has breached faith with the memory of the dead victims, their families and the people he was elected to serve."

   From the beginning of his term to the very end -- he leaves office Monday -- Ryan has been mired in controversy. A bribery scandal from his time as secretary of state has ensnared many of his closest allies and is threatening to implicate Ryan directly. Republicans blame his troubles for their loss in the last election of the governor's office and both houses of the Legislature -- the first time in three decades that the GOP has not controlled at least one. And incoming governor Rod Blagojevich (D) is upset that Ryan allegedly continues to hand out high-paying, public jobs to political cronies.

    The controversies aside, fixing the death penalty has become a mission for Ryan. There was the moratorium, a blue-ribbon panel he appointed that studied the issue for two years, and, in recent months, unprecedented clemency hearings for all 159 inmates on Illinois death row. Ryan will announce on Saturday how many on death row he will spare, indicating today he will possibly commute the sentences of some to life or allow others out on time served.

    Ryan admits that the path he has chosen is foreign. Like many new governors, he came into office four years ago pledging to invest in schools, fix roads and improve transit systems. "The death penalty was nowhere on the radar," he said.

   That changed when studies showed that since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977, 12 death row inmates  had been executed but 13  had been exonerated. Ryan pledged to stop executions and fix the system. Today, he pardoned four men -- Leroy Orange, Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley and Stanley Howard -- who were among dozens  who said  they were tortured by members of the Chicago Police Department's violent-crimes detective unit, which former lieutenant Jon Burge ran for more than two decades. Each man said they confessed to murders to stop abuse that included near-suffocation and severe beatings. Burge was fired in 1993 after a police inquiry found he had tortured suspects. He has denied doing anything wrong.

  "If I hadn't reviewed the case, I wouldn't believe it myself," Ryan said.

   Ryan has never been seen as a trailblazer. He had friends on both sides of the political aisle, and never appeared to be driven by a social or political agenda. He chose instead to deal with problems as they arose. "He is not an ideologue," said former Chicago alderman Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "He's practical."

   Families of the men Ryan pardoned cried today as they began making plans to pick them up from prison.  Activist Jesse Jackson, who attended Ryan's speech, lauded him as a "man of conscience," but said more needs to be done.

   "We need a system of checks and balances, not just a good man every now and then," Jackson said.

   Others were not pleased. One man who said he was a state employee announced as he left DePaul after Ryan's speech: "I hope he gets indicted next week," referring to the scandal involving bribes paid for driver's licenses. Prosecutors have said Ryan was present when an aide allegedly ordered state employees to destroy key evidence in the case.

   Many families of the other victims of death row inmates said they are expecting a sleepless night. Saturday morning, they will receive an express mail package from Ryan telling them whether he has given clemency to the convicted killer of their loved ones. 

Death Row Numbers Decline as Challenges to System Rise

 January 11, 2003

By ADAM LIPTAK

  For the first time in a generation, the number of inmates on death row has dropped. And the number of new death row inmates in 2001, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available, was the lowest since 1973.

Despite enduring and strong popular support for the death penalty, these numbers suggest that those directly involved in the justice system have serious concerns about the way capital punishment is carried out.

The nationwide drop in the number of death sentences is the product of several phenomena, including a lower murder rate. But legal experts across the political spectrum agreed that public discomfort with the administration of the system has played a significant role. Scores of exonerations based on DNA and other compelling evidence, recurring disclosures about sloppy or abusive police work and concerns about racial bias have damaged public confidence.

 What Justice Harry A. Blackmun once called the machinery of death, these experts say, is no longer considered terribly effective at delivering either justice or death by many of the people most directly involved in its operation.

 Yesterday, Gov. George Ryan of Illinois pardoned four death row inmates who he said were wrongfully convicted. And today, Mr. Ryan is expected to commute the death sentences of many, and possibly all, of the state's death row inmates, about 150, after a review prompted by the exoneration of 13 people who had faced death sentences.

[Page A13.]

 "We're in a period of national reconsideration," said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of political science and law at Amherst College and the author of "When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition" (Princeton University Press, 2001).

 "People are asking if the death penalty is compatible with values which in the American mainstream are taken seriously: equal protection, due process, protection of the innocent," Professor Sarat said. "What was played out in Illinois will be played out across the nation."

 The number of people on death row had increased consistently and seemingly inexorably for decades. In 2001, though, according to Justice Department statistics released last month, that number, now around 3,600, dropped for the first time since 1976.

 Governor Ryan's actions alone make it all but certain that the number will drop further. Recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court will also drive down the number of people on death row, legal experts said.

 In Illinois, more death row inmates were exonerated than executed in recent decades. And though the cost of capital trials and appeals can approach $2 million per conviction, only 749 of the 6,754 prisoners on death row nationwide since 1977, or about 11 percent, had been executed by the end of 2001. Many more left death row as a result of appeals court decisions, commutations and death from natural causes.

 Even supporters of capital punishment say the declining number of people sentenced to death represents more careful application of the death penalty, though some attribute it to continuing refinements in the justice system rather than a direct reaction to the number of people who have been exonerated.

 "It's the product of prosecutors and jurors being more discriminating," said Joshua Marquis, co-chairman of the National District Attorneys Association's Capital Litigation Committee. "Justice is a work in progress."

 The trend has more to do with practical problems than bedrock beliefs, said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. 

"It's not a neat or clean picture of moral revolution," Mr

Dieter said. "The death penalty is a government program,  and it doesn't work very well."     The number of people entering death row in 2001 was 155,  the smallest since 1973, just after the Supreme Court held  the death penalty unconstitutional. That was about half the  average in the previous seven years. The court reinstated  the death penalty in 1976

   "The most astonishing fact I have seen in a number of years  is the number of people going on death row," said James S

Liebman, a law professor and expert in the death penalty at  Columbia. But those numbers, he continued, do not tell the  whole story

   "It's gone down relative to the population," Professor  Liebman said. "It's also gone down relative to the homicide  rate."     Thirty-eight states and the federal government have death  penalty laws. But the majority of death sentences and  executions are centered in just a few states. More than  half of the people put on death row in 2001 were from four  states: Texas, California, Florida and North Carolina

Oklahoma and Texas accounted for more than half of all  executions that year

   Some supporters of the death penalty say most of the  decline in death sentences is attributable to  criminological trends

   "The fact that the murder rate is down accounts for some of  the softening," said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director  of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "To some extent  it's paradoxical: the death penalty brings down the crime  rate and that lessens the need to impose the death  penalty."     In 2001, for the first time since 1976, more people left  death row than entered it

   While the Justice Department has yet to issue figures for  2002, unofficial counts by groups that oppose the death  penalty indicate that the trend continued last year

   Sixty-six people were executed, which is 19 fewer than the  previous year and 32 fewer than the recent peak, in 1999,  of 98. (In 2002, 71 prisoners were executed.)     Another 90 had their sentences overturned or commuted, and  19 died of natural causes or suicide

   Many more people, then, left death row thanks to the courts  and the march of time than because of lethal injections,  the only method of execution employed in 2001

   On average, prisoners executed in 2001 had been on death  row for almost 12 years. The length of time between  sentence and execution has been steadily increasing for  decades

   That is largely a function of how careful the system is,  Mr. Marquis said. "Death row inmates are drowned in due  process," he said

   Even those long-delayed executions were unusual. Most death  sentences are never carried out

   Of the 779 people sentenced to death in California in the  past four decades, for instance, 10 have been executed

   Professor Liebman, the co-author of a study of appellate  decisions in death penalty cases, said 68 percent of death  sentences that were appealed in a 20-year period were  reversed. By contrast, he said, fewer than 10 percent of  first-degree murder convictions are overturned

   Studies from around the country suggest that the costs  associated with death penalty cases can add many hundreds  of thousands of dollars to the costs in other murder cases

Katherine Baicker, an economist at Dartmouth, found that  the average capital conviction costs $1.5 million

   Those costs are not spread evenly around the nation or  within some states. They are often borne largely or  entirely by individual counties

   But 80 percent of American counties had no death penalty  convictions from 1983 to 1997, and another 10 percent had  only one, according to a study by Professor Baicker. Even  in death penalty states, Professor Liebman said, a majority  of counties never use it

   Those that do paid heavily, Professor Baicker said. She  found that even a single capital trial caused counties to  raise taxes, on average, by 1.6 percent and to decrease  spending on things like highways and the police

   In part as a consequence of these costs, Professor Liebman  said, "little by little, there are more counties that are  tipping into the group that does not use the death penalty  anymore."     Mr. Marquis said the scrutiny death sentences deserve is  expensive but not a reason to abandon it

   "Justice is not a matter of going, `Oh, well, it's not  cost-efficient,' " Mr. Marquis said

   Forty-three percent of people on death row are black. About  1.5 percent are women. Two percent were 17 or younger when  they committed the crimes that resulted in their death  sentences. Everyone sentenced to death in 2001 was found  guilty of murder

   A number of studies, including one issued this week in  Maryland, have concluded that the race of the murder victim  plays a large role in determining whether the victim's  killer will be executed. The race of the defendant by  itself is generally found to be largely irrelevant

   Public support for the death penalty is down from its peak  of 80 percent in the middle of the last decade, but by most  accounts it is still around of 70 percent

   "Most politicians would give an arm to have ratings that  that high," Mr. Scheidegger said

   But Professor Sarat pointed to a second statistic

   "We  are also showing 40 to 50 percent saying the death penalty  is not administered fairly," he said

   The tension between general support and practical unease is  at work, he said, in the national reconsideration of the  death penalty

   The compromise position, according to many people, is to  institute a moratorium on the death penalty until the  system is made more reliable

   Mr. Marquis, of the district attorneys' association, said  the moratorium movement's actions represent a tactic rather  than a position

   "It's an act of real moral cowardice," he said. "A  moratorium is a moral dodge. If you don't like the death  penalty, then abolish it."

Clemency for all 

12.01.2003

 Ryan commutes 164 death sentences to life in prison without parole. `There is no honorable way to kill,' he says.

 By Maurice Possley and Steve Mills

Tribune staff reporters

 Declaring the state's capital punishment system "haunted by the demon of error" and citing the state legislature's failure to reform it, Gov. George Ryan on Saturday commuted the sentences of every inmate on Illinois' Death Row.

 With two days left as governor, Ryan issued a blanket commutation that converted every death sentence to life in prison without parole--164 inmates, including four women.

 "Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious--and therefore immoral--I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death," Ryan said, borrowing the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. "I won't stand for it. ... I had to act."

 Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000 after 13 Death Row inmates were exonerated and following the Tribune series "The Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois," which exposed serious flaws. Ryan said his three-year examination of the state's death penalty system had only raised new alarms over errors in determining guilt and errors in determining "who among the guilty deserves to die."

 He called the number of exonerated inmates--a total that grew to 17 when he pardoned four men from Death Row on Friday on the basis of actual innocence--"an absolute embarrassment" and "a catastrophic failure."

 "The facts I have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not only about the innocence of people on Death Row, but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole," Ryan told a cheering audience at Northwestern University's School of Law that included six exonerated former Death Row inmates.

 "The Illinois capital punishment system is broken. It has taken innocent men to a hair's breadth escape from their unjust execution."

 Ryan, whose power to commute and pardon is immune from challenge, responded to critics--whose ranks include Gov.-elect Rod Blagojevich, who called it a mistake, and Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine.

 "Prosecutors in Illinois have the ultimate commutation power, a power that is exercised every day," he said. "They decide who will be subject to the death penalty, who will get a plea deal or even who may get a complete pass on prosecution. By what objective standards do they make these decisions? We do not know, they are not public."

 The death penalty was handed out differently, Ryan said, depending on where people lived in Illinois, who their prosecutor was, who their defense lawyer was, how poor they were and what race they were.

 "Prosecutors across our state continue to deny that our death penalty system is broken--or they say if there is a problem it is really a small one and we can fix it somehow, someday," Ryan said.

 He said he found it difficult to believe the system could be repaired when "not a single one" of the reforms urged by his Capital Punishment Commission has been adopted by the legislature.

 "These reforms would not have created a perfect system, but they would have dramatically reduced the chance for error," he said. "I don't know how many more systemic flaws we need to uncover before [the legislature] would be spurred to action."

 Ryan acknowledged his decision to commute the sentences of all Death Row prisoners "will draw ridicule, scorn and anger from many ... Even if the exercise of my power becomes my burden, I will bear it. ... I sought this office, and even in my final days of holding it, I can't shrink from the obligations to justice and fairness that it demands. ... I'm going to sleep well tonight knowing I made the right decision."

 In all, Ryan commuted 164 death sentences to life without parole. On Friday he pardoned four Death Row inmates, resulting in the release of three. Another three Death Row inmates had their sentences shortened to 40-year terms.

 After his speech, during interviews with reporters, Ryan said he hoped his action would spark increased examination of the death penalty in other states.

 "If it's this bad in Illinois, it's probably just as bad across the country," he said.

 Ryan commuted the terms of three Death Row inmates--Mario Flores, Montell Johnson and William Franklin--to 40-year prison terms.

 Ryan's blanket commutation caps a remarkable ideological journey for a beleaguered governor. The Republican entered the governor's office a staunch supporter of capital punishment. As a state legislator in 1977, he voted in favor of reinstating the death penalty. When he departs the office Monday, still hounded by an unrelated corruption scandal, Ryan will leave behind a vacant Death Row.

 Though other governors have taken sweeping clemency actions before him, experts said Ryan's decision compares in scale only with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 overturning of the death penalty, which reduced hundreds of death sentences to life.

 What effect his decision may have on the debate over capital punishment nationally remains to be seen, but Ryan sealed his place as a hero of the anti-death penalty movement, drawing support from leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

 But the extraordinary move also prompted outrage and anguish from prosecutors and some murder victims' families, who received letters from Ryan on Saturday morning telling them what he was about to do.

 "I am not prepared to take the risk that we may execute an innocent person," Ryan wrote in the letters sent by overnight mail.

 Devine called the decision "stunningly disrespectful to the hundreds of families who lost their loved ones to these Death Row murderers." With his choice, Devine said, Ryan had "once again ripped open the emotional scabs of these grieving families."

 Peoria County State's Atty. Kevin Lyons said Ryan is "in hate with" justice.

 "It was so offensive for him to compare himself to Lincoln and say, `I am a friend to these men on Death Row,'" Lyons said. "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."

 Some family members and friends of murder victims said they believed Ryan was merely trying to shift attention away from the corruption scandal that has plagued his administration and led to criminal charges against top aides.

 "I just think it's political tactics," said Helen Sophie Rajca of Bolingbrook, whose two brothers were shot and stabbed to death in 1979.

 In his speech, Ryan acknowledged the anger of the victims' families. Ryan had listened to their gripping stories and pleas in recent months and had at one point told family members he was leaning away from a blanket commutation. During the more than hourlong speech, he struggled to retain his composure when he told the story of family friend Stephen Small from Kankakee, whose killer also got his sentence commuted.

 Death Row may be empty, but there are more than 60 capital cases in the pipeline in Illinois where prosecutors have formally declared their intention to seek the death penalty, the vast majority in the Chicago area.

 In dozens of other cases, defendants are technically eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors have yet to signal their intentions.

In Cook County, there are an estimated 50 pending capital cases. There are three capital cases in Kane and one in Will County. In DuPage, prosecutors are considering the death penalty in six cases.

 In Coles County, a death penalty trial will begin next month for Anthony Mertz. He is accused of strangling Shannon McNamara, an Eastern Illinois University student.

 Incoming Att. Gen. Lisa Madigan said she still believed capital punishment was appropriate for heinous crimes, and said she hoped the governor's decision would not delay or derail the reform process.

 She said she planned to review the lawsuit her predecessor, Jim Ryan, has filed in an effort to scuttle commutations received by those who did not sign clemency petitions, or whose death sentences have been tossed out by the courts.

 "I will meet with the lawyers in the attorney general's office and reach out to State's Atty. Devine very soon to decide our next step in that case," she said through a spokeswoman.

 At the Mexican Consulate, relatives of Flores, Juan Caballero and Gabriel Solache--the three Mexican nationals on Death Row--gathered to express their appreciation.

"This has been a very difficult week for us. We heard [Mario] was going to be pardoned, then we heard the opposite. But it is great just to know he is not going to be executed. We are really grateful," said Ana Flores, Mario's sister.

 Carlos Sada, Mexico's general consul in Chicago, hailed the announcement as a victory for Mexico, which has 54 nationals in Death Row in the U.S., making Mexico the country with the largest number of foreign nationals among condemned prisoners in this country.

 Asked if he considered that he had saved many lives, Ryan told a reporter, "I never thought about that. ... My goal was to improve a broken system in Illinois."

 After the commission made recommendations that were not implemented, "the next logical step is if you can't fix it ... repair or repeal. You can't repeal it. Politically, it's impossible to do. So we had to do the next best thing we could, and that's what we did today. We commuted the sentences, there's a clean slate for the new governor to come in. ... And he's got a new General Assembly coming in."

 Former Illinois Chief Justice Moses Harrison II, who dissented in every death penalty case during the end of his term on the court, called Ryan's action a courageous step. "He indicated a long time ago that he was aware the system was broken," said Harrison. "Once he did that, why, then there was only one thing he could do."

 Tribune staff reporters Jeff Coen, Monica Davey, John Keilman and Christi Parsons contributed to this report. 

12 January, 2003

Calls for US death penalty review

Wrongful convictions changed Ryan's mind

 Pressure is growing for the death penalty to be suspended across the United States, following the commuting of all the death sentences in the state of Illinois.

US DEATH PENALTY

Reinstated in 1976

 820 executions since then

 Nearly 3,700 on death row

 Used in 38 states

 Democrat Senator Russ Feingold called for a national review and a moratorium on all executions.

 In what campaigners have described as a watershed moment, Illinois Governor George Ryan, a Republican, decided the capital punishment system there was unsafe and on Saturday emptied death row.

 His decision was met with outrage and dismay by prosecutors and relatives of murder victims.

 'Turning point'

 Experts quoted by the US media said the effects of Mr Ryan's decision would be felt nationally, because it was based on the most extensive study of the death penalty since it was re-established in most states in the mid-1970s.

 The Washington Post said in an editorial that Governor Ryan - who leaves office on Monday - left "a model for the nation as to how a state can begin facing the problem of the death penalty".

  The Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral

 Governor George Ryan

 The human rights group Amnesty International said his actions could empower other states to end capital punishment.

 "Illinois sets an example simply because its death penalty system is similar to that of many states," said Amnesty's US director, William Schulz.

 The country's main anti-death penalty group also applauded Governor Ryan's move.

 "This is a watershed moment, a turning point in the debate over capital punishment in the United States," Mr Hawkins, of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said.

 But Mr Ryan's successor criticised the commuting of the death sentences to life imprisonment for 156 convicts.

 "There is no one-size-fits-all approach. We're talking about people who committed murder," Democrat Rod Blagojevich said.

 But, he said, he would respect the moratorium.

 Relatives' anger

 When Mr Ryan was elected to the post in 1998 he was a supporter of the death penalty.

 My son is in the ground for 17 years and justice is not done

 Vern Fuling

 But three years ago he halted executions, after courts found that 13 death row inmates had been wrongly convicted since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977.

 A commission set up by the governor found that the death sentences were given disproportionately to the poor, people from ethnic minorities and in cases in which informers' evidence was used.

 "Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death," he said announcing his decision on Saturday.

 "I'm going to sleep well tonight knowing that I made the right decision," he said.

 But the reaction from families of victims of those who sentences have been commuted was very different.

 "My son [William] is in the ground for 17 years and justice is not done," said Vern Fuling.

 William Fuling was murdered in 1985, and now his killer will serve life imprisonment, instead of facing execution.

 "This is like a mockery," said Mr Fuling.

 12 January, 2003

Activists hail death penalty 'watershed'

 Wrongful convictions changed Ryan's mind

 Opponents of the death penalty in the United States have welcomed the decision of the outgoing governor of Illinois to commute the sentences of the state's 167 death row prisoners.

 This is a watershed moment, a turning point in the debate over capital punishment in the United States

 Campaigner Steven Hawkins

 The head of the Washington-based National Coalition to abolish the Death Penalty, Steven Hawkins, described the move as a watershed moment and praised the governor's courage and leadership.

 The decision has prompted the Democrat Senator of Wisconsin, Russ Feingold, to call for a national review of the death penalty and a moratorium on all executions.

 But the families of those killed in the cases under review expressed dismay and anger at the decision, which will leave the prisoners facing life sentences.

  This is like a mockery

 Vern Fuling

Victim's father

 Governor George Ryan, a Republican who leaves office on Monday, told 156 inmates on death row that they no longer face dying by lethal injection.

 "I'm going to sleep well tonight knowing that I made the right decision," he said.

 "Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death," he said.

 'Greatness'

 The country's main anti-death penalty group applauded Governor Ryan's move.

 Governor Ryan suspended all executions in 2000

"This is a watershed moment, a turning point in the debate over capital punishment in the United States," said Mr Hawkins, of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

 "Governor Ryan has taught us what leading truly looks like," said Lawrence Marshall, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Chicago's Northwestern University.

 "This is greatness, my friends."

 Hard to take

 But the reaction from families of victims of those who sentences have been commuted was very different.

 "My son [William] is in the ground for 17 years and justice is not done," said Vern Fuling.

 Leroy Orange: Pressure lifted

William Fuling was murdered in 1985, and now his killer will serve life imprisonment, instead of facing execution.

 "This is like a mockery," said Mr Fuling.

 Ollie Dodds saw Madison Hobley, the man convicted of starting a fire which killed her daughter Johnnie, walk free on Friday.

 "He doesn't deserve to be out there," she said.

 Governor Ryan's decision was hard to take, she added.

 "I don't know how he could do that."

 Meanwhile Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who takes over as Illinois governor on Monday, said Mr Ryan was wrong to commute all death sentences.

 "There is no one-size-fits-all approach," he said. "We're talking about people who committed murder."

 'Pressure lifted'

 On Friday, Governor Ryan pardoned four death row inmates convicted of murder, all of whom said that confessions were beaten out of them by police in Chicago.

 US DEATH PENALTY

Reinstated in 1976

 820 executions since then

 Nearly 3,700 on death row

 Leroy Orange, one of the men pardoned, was at Northwestern University Law School to hear Governor Ryan announce the blanket commutation of death sentences in the state.

 Mr Orange, who had spent 19 years in prison after being convicted of fatal stabbings, spoke of his relief at being released.

 "A lot of pressure was lifted from me that I didn't realise was on me."

 A commission set up in Illinois by Governor Ryan found that the death sentences were given disproportionately to the poor, people from ethnic minorities and in cases in which informers' evidence was used.

 The results changed the governor's own mind. In 1998, he had been elected to the post as a supporter of the death penalty.

 He had halted executions three years ago, after courts found that 13 death row inmates had been wrongly convicted, since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977.