With broad death penalty reform legislation having passed both houses of the Illinois state legislature and virtually no opposition from law enforcment, Governor Rod Blagojevich is likely to sign the reform bill into law. Once passed in Illiniois, it is expected to be a model for similar legislation introduced in other states.

The legislation seeks to reshape every aspect of the legal process, from police lineups to reviews of death penalty cases by the Illinois Supreme Court. It also is viewed as a model for other states seeking to reform their capital punishment systems.

Lineups, both in person and photo arrays, would be ''blind'' and no longer be conducted in groups. Beginning with a pilot project, the cops conducting the lineups would not know who the suspect is, and they would have to tell the witness that the real suspect may not be in the lineup. Also, instead of a group of potential suspects being paraded into a lineup, reviews would be conducted individually, giving a witness time to to study each person.

Another provision would require a hearing on jailhouse informers to verify their credibility at special hearings before they are allowed to testify at trial. And a jailhouse informer could no longer be the only witness in a capital case.
Police would be required to turn over their field notes, allowing defense attorneys an oppportunity to check whether evidence discovered early in the investigation may point toward a suspect's innocence.

There would be greater access to DNA testing, an IQ of 75 would be set for establishing who is mentally retarded and thus ineligible for the death penalty, and the number of crimes subject to the death penalty would be limited.

Also, the state's Supreme Court would no longer be required to find fundamental errors in a case to overturn a death sentence, and police found to have lied at trial would face decertification, a move opposed by police unions.

After a pilot project, police and prosecutors would have two years to put in place the necessary equipment and safeguards to videotape or audiotape virtually every murder confession.

The legislation is a start and does not include all necessary reforms, but those included are most welcome and long overdue. But for former Illinois Governor George Ryan taking the bull by the horns and declaring a moratorium on the death penalty while a Commission he created studied the state's broken death penalty system, ultimately concluding that 85 reforms were necessary, this legislation would not have become a reality this soon.

A big thanks are due to former Governor Ryan and the Illinois Commission of Capital Punishment --you can access their report here.

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