Death penalty is still law, but likely won’t be used soon

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Nicholas T. Sheley faces 39 counts of first-degree murder in two states in connection with the beating deaths of eight people. Each charge carries the potential for a death sentence.

In Missouri, where four of the counts are filed, the death penalty is in play, and prosecutors have indicated they intend to seek it. However, in Illinois, the possibility of capital punishment for Sheley is more likely to be decided – or left undecided – in a Springfield office than any courtroom.

Eight years before the 2008 killing spree for which Sheley is the lone defendant, former Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on the death penalty – an act that suspended all executions. Moreover, he commuted the sentences of all convicted death row inmates to life in prison 3 years later – even pardoning a few for wrongful prosecutions – making the statement that the capital punishment system in Illinois fatally flawed.

Ryan’s successor, Rod Blagojevich, was content to leave the moratorium in place. Gov. Pat Quinn appears to be taking the same stand; as recently as February he said the system had a murky past that demanded changes.

Former Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine heads the Chicago Bar Association’s Death Penalty Task Force, a bipartisan group of attorneys, judges and state lawmakers charged with assessing the status of the moratorium and reviewing capital case procedure.

From his perspective, the moratorium puts Quinn in “a perfect political position” that allows him to officially support the death penalty but not use it until it’s perfect.

“So, theoretically, everyone is happy, except the families of victims that are sitting there wondering what’s going to happen,” Devine said.

Even so, Dixon attorney Rolfe Ehrmann, a death penalty-certified criminal defense lawyer with Ehrmann, Gehlbach, Badger and Lee, said the moratorium is not a final solution.

“There’s no such thing as a permanent moratorium,” Ehrmann said. “The matter will come back up, and the court will do something about it if it has to.”

In fact, part of the court system already has responded through the Chicago Bar’s task force.

Part of the task force’s goal is to review 85 recommendations made by a similar commission appointed by Ryan in 2000. Many of those suggestions were adopted by the Illinois Supreme Court or the General Assembly, including a capital litigation trial bar to qualify attorneys to defend capital cases and a requirement to videotape interrogations in homicide cases.

“But let’s face facts,” Devine said. “It’s unlikely all the recommendations will be enacted since some people oppose them.”

Regardless of the task force’s ultimate recommendations on capital cases and the moratorium, Devine said he hopes the governor and possibly the Legislature take action soon.

“And if there isn’t the will to do that – to make the reforms – then [we need] to decide whether we’re going to have the death penalty at all,” Devine said. “My view is that, if it’s not [lifted], we should make the decision whether we’re going to keep the death penalty ... because having the moratorium is really just ducking the issue and creating a hypocrisy of one of the most important laws we have.”

Ehrmann said it’s unlikely the Legislature will repeal the death penalty because a minority of Americans oppose the law.

“... I suspect that the majority of Americans do have a sense that there is an outside limit,” Ehrmann said, “[And that] there are things a person can do that we want to use the death penalty [to punish], whether it’s weapons of mass destruction or terrible, heinous crimes that could be committed.”

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