After ten years of futility, trying gamely to make its irreparably broken capital punishment system work, Illinois is on the verge of saying “enough is enough.” Today, a committee in the Illinois House passed a bill to abolish the state’s moribund death penalty, and the full House and Senate will vote on the measure before the end of this week. Way back in January of 2000, a moratorium on executions was imposed when it was noticed that more people were getting off of death row because of their innocence than because of their execution. This didn’t stop the state from continuing to try to have a death penalty, and continuing to spend millions of dollars on it.
Now, with efforts to fix their flawed capital punishment system proven to be a failure, state lawmakers in the House can decide to stop throwing good money after bad and vote to abolish the death penalty once and for all. The Senate should do the same. If you live in Illinois, or know someone who does, now is the time for all state legislators to hear from their constituents – by phone, by fax, by email … All Illinois constituents can use their address to find their state legislators’ contact information here.
Spread the word and make the call TODAY!