Illinois has abolished the death penalty Wednesday, becoming the 16th U.S. state to abandon the ultimate punishment, said the office of Pat Quinn, the Democratic governor of this state in the north of the United States, a stronghold of President Barack Obama.
The abolition was passed by parliament in Illinois in January, but the mystery remained unsolved as to its ratification by Pat Quinn, newly elected governor, who had already voted in favor of the death penalty.
"Our system of capital punishment is inherently riddled with errors," said the governor according to a transcript of the text of his remarks to reporters in Chicago.
For this reason, he added, "I decided to commute to life imprisonment without the possibility of leaving the sentences of all current death row" today. Fifteen people are waiting in death row in Illinois.
Illinois has a turbulent recent history on this subject which culminated in 2003 by the commutation of all death sentences to life imprisonment by Republican Governor George Ryan after three-year moratorium.
The debate erupted in 1999 when students at Northwestern University were able to prove the innocence of a death row inmate in Illinois.
"We can not tolerate the execution of innocents, because it jeopardizes the legitimacy of the government" of Illinois, said Mr. Quinn."Since 1977, Illinois has released 20 people from death row, seven have been cleared since the 2000 moratorium, a record that should disturb us," he said.
"To say that is unacceptable is not enough to express regret and shame we should feel, as a society, for these miscarriages of justice," he estimated the governor who, in addition, the death penalty n has no "chilling effect".
Illinois had not played since 1999 executing.
A general trend of declining death sentences and executions in the U.S., the elected officials of several states in recent years wondering about the possibility of abolishing the death penalty, which is still in force in 34 states on 50, particularly because of its exponential cost compared to life.
In 2009, the governor of New Mexico (southwest) signed the law abolishing the death penalty in his state. Two years ago, it was New Jersey (east). The death penalty was declared unconstitutional by the courts in the State of New York (northeast) in 2004.
Abolitionists closely scrutinize these abolitions point in the expectation that 26 states prohibit the death penalty.They can then ask the Supreme Court to abolish everywhere, on behalf of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits "unusual punishment", that is to say a majority disapproved of States.
The United States has executed 46 people including a woman in 2010, against 98 in 1999.
