John Howard Association of Illinois

The John Howard Association of Illinois originally promulgated a statement opposing the death penalty in 1989. The statement below is a later revision of its anti-death penalty position.

Adopted as revised by the Board of Directors: January 15,2003

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

In March 2000, the Governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on capital punishment after it came to light that since 1997 13 innocent men had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to the harshest punishment, death (Report of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment, 2002).

A recent Amnesty International report notes that over 90 individuals in 22 states have been released from death row for wrongful convictions since 1993 (Amnesty International, Feb. 2001).

A conservative estimate would credit Illinois with 15% of our wrongful death sentences nationally since 1977. Innocent persons have been executed in the past, with no guarantee that such mistakes will not occur in the future.

As the number of executions increase and as our legislature continues to broaden the applicability of the death penalty in Illinois, the probability of error also increases.

The more persons we sentence to death, the greater the likelihood that we will execute innocent persons. Many of our other errors can be corrected -- these cannot. Indeed, these flaws have increased the public's doubts about an already troubled criminal justice system. The death penalty in Illinois should be abolished.

Read the full statement here (PDF).