Gov. Pat Quinn: *”It is impossible to create a perfect system, one that is free of all mistakes, free of all discrimination with respect to race or economic circumstance or geography. To have a consistent, perfect death penalty system, I have concluded, after looking at everything I’ve been given, that that’s impossible in our state. I think it’s the right and just thing to abolish the death penalty.”*
Executions had been halted in Illinois since a January 2000 moratorium that followed revelations of the innocence of at least 20 death row prisoners.
