EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

There hasn't been this much high-level debate about the death penalty since the late '70s, when Illinois reimposed the ultimate sanction for certain types of murder.

The statistics are alarming: Eleven men released from Death Row, each a walking rebuke to our system of justice. Gov. George Ryan, a proponent of capital punishment, called such failures (his word) "more than troublesome to all of us."

But what is truly alarming is the possibility that many Illinoisans are not troubled in the least. James Krohe Jr. asserts in his essay, beginning on page 21, that only the "professionally outraged" are tolling the bell for the wrongly accused. He means the anti-death penalty lobbyists. We would add the media, in their watchdog role, leaders in the legal community and, increasingly, a surprising cross-section of public officials.

Not that most, or even very many, of this state's top politicians are going weak in the knees on the death penalty There's no political reason to. Whenever Illinoisans get a say in the matter; they support capital punishment. Overwhelmingly. Krohe has a few thoughts on that, too. "In the end," he writes, "most people support the death penalty not because they think it works but because they think it is right. Even if most people agree that it is but a gesture, they feel it is a gesture that must be made - our way of affirming that, in this place and time, there are limits, that conduct is not unbounded."

But what if the gesture goes awry? Every Illinoisan ought to be able to envision being falsely accused, even those of us who aren't too poor, or too poorly educated, to get the justice that should, by right, be there for everyone.

On this fundamental point (however slowly and for whatever reasons) politicians are a step ahead of the public.

In recent weeks, state Attorney General Jim Ryan established a process for reviewing capital cases that will include attorneys for the defense and the prosecution.

The board of the Illinois State Bar Association endorsed the process in cases where there are claims of actual innocence. That organization also urged better legal representation in capital cases and financial help for indigent defendants.

Supreme Court Justice Moses Harrison II raised alarms about the "mechanism" for adjudicating capital cases, arguing it doesn't work in a just and reliable way. "I do not know what the solution is. No one seems to.... Perhaps there is no answer. I do know, however, that until we have a better understanding of where the system is failing and how, if at all, it can be remedied, the state of Illinois has no business continuing to send defendants to their deaths." Strong stuff for a member of the state's high court.

And on the eve of last month's execution (see page 10), George Ryan released what is surely the most absorbing rationale by a governor for his decision not to overturn a death sentence, the first carried out on his watch. "As a legislator and as a candidate for governor; I supported the death penalty. As governor, I still support the death penalty," he reasoned in a three-page printed statement. Yet: "Our recent history makes it clear that our system - at times - has not lived up to our fundamental expectations.... I urge my constitutional partners - the General Assembly and the Illinois Supreme Court - as well as all who cherish justice, to address this matter and right these wrongs.

A growing concern among public officials about the fairness, even the efficacy, of capital punishment - is encouraging news.

As a Statehouse reporter for public radio, Peggy Boyer Long covered the passage of the state's ]977 capita/punishment law and was a media witness during the 1990 lethal injection of Charles Walker the first person executed under that law.

STAFF
Publisher:	Edward R. Wojcicki
Editor:	Peggy Boyer Long Editor Emeritus: William L Day
Circulation &
business manager: Elizabeth A. Curl 
Administrative secretary: Charlene Lambert 
Statehouse bureau chief: Burney Simpson
Projects editor: Maureen F McKinney 
Associate editor: Beverley Scobell
Sections editor: Rodd Whelpley
Contributing editors: Madeleine Doubek
Patrick E Gauen
James Krohe Jr.
Charles N Wheeler III
James Ylisela Jr.

Designer:	Diana Nelson Editorial assistant: Debi Edmund
Graduate assistant: Rosalie Warren