Moratorium is not the final answer

Two years ago this month we urged the governor and legislature to end the death penalty moratorium and make a decision once and for all whether Illinois would ever again carry out the ultimate punishment.

At that time, we reiterated a position we have taken for many years since the moratorium was put in place in 2000 by former Gov. George Ryan. And we hoped anew that the hand-wringing over the death penalty would be resolved before another two or three years went by.

Yet, as Daily Herald political writer Kerry Lester reported Sunday, we are no closer than we were in 2008 to ending the confusing state of having, but not actually imposing, a death penalty.

Lester reported that only one of the four candidates for governor supports removing the moratorium and reinstating the death penalty if he is elected - Republican Bill Brady. Gov. Pat Quinn supports the imposition of the death penalty in certain cases but also supports continuing the moratorium. The two other candidates are opposed to the death penalty and would like to see it abolished altogether.

The debate over the death penalty has quelled quite a bit - today's governor candidates don't even mention their stance on the death penalty on their campaign websites - since Ryan put it in place. Twenty death row inmates were exonerated in Illinois, the second-highest in the nation, according to the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Included among those was Rolando Cruz, eventually exonerated in the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.

In 2003, Ryan cleared out death row, changing the sentences of more than 150 inmates to life in prison.

Yet since then, there have been 15 men sentenced to death. At the top of the list is 34-year-old Anthony Mertz, convicted in 2003 of killing Rolling Meadows native and Eastern Illinois University student Shannon McNamara. What will come of those cases depends on a governor either lifting the moratorium or the legislature changing the law and abolishing the death penalty.

We believe today as we have in the past that this murky middle ground is confusing at best and political avoidance at worst. Many reforms have been put in place to give greater assurance that those on death row belong there. If more reforms are needed, let's see that it's done. If the system can't be trusted, then let's change the system or do away with the death penalty altogether.

But 10 years of not knowing whether Illinois really has the death penalty is long enough. It's not fair to the families of victims. It's not fair to prosecutors. And it's not fair to defendants. All sides should know upfront what is possible and what's not.