The government should not be in the business of revenge killings.
Dance of Death
The Washington Post reports:
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday called for reviving the death penalty in his state, which banned the practice in 2011 and has not carried out an execution in nearly two decades.
…
Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D), the House majority leader, dismissed Rauner’s call to reinstate the death penalty with a brief statement Monday.
“On its merits, the governor’s proposal is a terrible idea,” she said.
Illinois Senate President John J. Cullerton (D) also was critical, noting that prior issues with capital punishment prompted lawmakers to abolish it years earlier.
“The death penalty should never be used as a political tool to advance one’s agenda,” Cullerton said in a statement. “Doing so is in large part why we had so many problems and overturned convictions. That’s why we had bipartisan support to abolish capital punishment. I’ve seen nothing from today’s announcement to suggest that lesson has been learned.”
(click here to continue reading Illinois governor wants the state to revive its death penalty for mass murderers and people who kill police – The Washington Post.)
Yet another reason not to vote for Rauner, as if there were even any room left on the column.
Rauner’s cynical move is solely about the election, shoring up support with the right-wing which is rightfully suspicious of Rauner’s conservative credentials, and should be seen as such.
Illinois banned its death penalty in 2011, but the state had halted executions long before that. In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan (R) declared a moratorium and decried the death penalty as “fraught with error.” He then commuted all of the state’s death sentences in 2003, an unprecedented move.
One of his successors, Pat Quinn (D), signed legislation that abolished the death penalty entirely in 2011. He also pointed to the risks of executing a potentially innocent person, saying: “If the system can’t be guaranteed, 100-percent error-free, then we shouldn’t have the system.”