This is TalkLeft's 2,000 entry in the nine months we've been posting. We were hoping when the time came we would have something important to write about and we do: This afternoon a panel of the Illinois House voted to abolish the death penalty.

March 6, 2003, 12:01 PM CST

SPRINGFIELD -- An Illinois House committee voted Thursday to abolish the death penalty, raising the stakes in the long debate over how to respond to flaws in the state’s capital punishment system.

A judiciary committee approved the abolition bill 8-4, sending it to the floor for a vote by the full House.

The vote followed dramatic testimony from men who were sentenced to die for crimes they said they did not commit. Aaron Patterson described being given electric shocks and suffocated by Chicago police until he signed a false confession.

Rev. George Brooks, Director of Advocacy for Kolbe House in Chicago, attended the hearing and provides this first hand report:

I just returned from attending these hearings. There was a lot of emotion PRIOR to the testimony. As indicated the testimony, especially of Gary Gauger and Aaron Patterson was VERY emotional. HOWEVER, the some of the voting was the MOST emotional. One legislator detailed in tears about his brother being killed by a hit & run driver, how the person was never caught, how an "old" friend appeared like an "angel"--and he voted YES while in tears, which continued long after the vote. Another legislator voted her conscience, which is contrary to her constituents and to her husband and she was the ONLY Republican to "cross over" ( one voted present, hence 8-4.) She was in tears as she voted, which continued for a long time after the final vote. And those of us present..... highly emotional after the vote.

Update: Rev. George just told us he testified at today's hearing and will have more thoughts later, so check back. (Rev. George communicates via e-mail, neither he nor Kolbe House have a website yet.)

There's more good news in the death penalty area today: In Maryland, a bill to halt the death penalty pending further study passed a procedural hurdle in the state senate and will proceed to a full senate vote. While the bill's ultimate passage is said to be unlikely, it's not over till it's over.

Then there's some bad news: a lawyer and former judges say that in six days, a man will be put to death in Texas who is likely innocent. We know, the public thinks lots of guilty people claim to be innocent, but in this case, look who's backing inmate Delma Banks:

"But in Banks' case, evidence that he was unjustly convicted is compelling enough that former U.S. District Judge and FBI Director William Sessions, joined by two other former federal judges and a former federal prosecutor, has filed court arguments calling Banks' conviction a potential miscarriage of justice and asking that his execution be stopped. All four are considered strong supporters of the death penalty. "The questions presented in Mr. Banks' petition directly implicate the integrity of the administration of the death penalty in this country," the four men argue in a friend of the court brief. "The prosecutors in this case concealed important impeachment material from the defense."