Governor took a good thing too far
Commentary
Patrick Jennings

Some changes happen in small steps. Others happen in giant leaps.

Illinois governor George Ryan choose the giant leap approach when he commuted all 156 death sentences in his state to life in prison. In addition, he pardoned four men whose confessions were taken by methods described as “torture.”

Ryan is not the first governor to act on problems with his state’s death row. The former governor of Maryland, Parris Glendening, ordered a moratorium on executions untilthe state could look further into alleged misdeeds. Though ordering a moratorium may be a sensible action, cleaning out death row is not.

Let me make one thing clear. I’m against the death penalty. It doesn’t allow for new evidence to come to light — until after the fact — and DNA evidence has proved a few executed people innocent. As it stands, capital punishment costs more than life in prison. The extra guards and special facilities during the appeals process cost more than putting prisoners in a normal maximum security prison for an extra 30 to40 years.

It doesn’t provide any real closure for the family of the victim. I recall a mother of one of the Oklahoma City bombing victims attending the execution of Timothy McVeigh. Seeing her daughter’s murderer die didn’t make up for her loss.

OK, if I’m against the death penalty, why am I notapplauding Ryan’s move? Simply put, he went a bit too far. The idea isn’t to make your side happy.The right tactic is to makethe other side join your side. A wide brush stroke like this is more antagonistic to the other side than halting the executions until you can prove to the pro-death penalty supporters that there are indeed problems so deeply rooted the program must be halted.

I’m also not happy with the context of the move. When a chief executive is on his way out of office, it’s fairly standard to pardon a bevy of white-collar friends. Clinton pardoned dozens, including his brother-in-law, right before leaving office in 2000. The message is a final “screw you” to opponents.

And why is Ryan the outgoing governor? Because he was involved in a nasty scandal last year that ruined his chances of even getting nominated for another term. His political career was over, and without fear of political consequences, he did something for one of his favorite political causes.
In the long run, this changes nearly nothing. There’s no legislation, not now anyway, that will prevent someone from being put on death row tomorrow. Nationwide sentiment about the death penalty remains unchanged by Ryan’s actions. Those 156 prisoners now get to rot in prison instead of having a date with the lethal injection table, but that’s the only thing that’s been changed. I would’ve gone the Moratorium route if I were in charge.

You can change some things overnight, but public opinion isn’t usually one of them.

Patrick Jennings is a freshman economics major from Melbourne, Fla. He can be reached at (p.a.jennings@tcu.edu).

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