Democratic Party of Evanston

On the Issues > Death Penalty>
Statement of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Democratic Party of Evanston Forum on the Death Penalty, July 25, 2000

I am unequivocally opposed to the death penalty and strongly believe that the State should not be in the business of killing people.

To date, there has been no evidence that this punishment has had a deterrent effect on criminal activity. The fact also remains that our judicial system is not color blind. Evidence shows that the death penalty has been applied much more frequently to people of color than white convicts. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, eighty-one percent of federal prisoners facing death sentences are members of minority groups.

And the most compelling reason for opposing capital punishment is the real risk of taking the life of innocent people. Since 1977, the State of Illinois has executed 12 death row inmates. Governor Ryan, to his great credit, halted all executions after 13 wrongly convicted men were released from death row in 17 months. Those are frightening numbers, raising the likelihood that, with the death penalty in place, there will be mistakes that the state can never fix.

How can we then take the governor of Texas at his word when he says that he's "confident that people who have been put to death (in Texas) have been guilty of the crime charged." He's presided over more than 130 executions in the past five years, the most in the nation. During that time, the governor has refused to step in when real questions exist about innocence or guilt. He even vetoed a bill that would have given Texas a much-improved public defender system.

As a nation, we are split on the death penalty. Certainly, though, no one wants to see an innocent man or woman put to death. That is why I support legislation like the Innocence Protection Act of 2000. This bill would ensure that convicted offenders are afforded an opportunity to prove their innocence through DNA testing and that states provide competent legal services at every stage of a death penalty prosecution.

I am also proud to be an original cosponsor of Representative Jackson's bill, the Accuracy in Judicial Administration Act of 2000. This significant piece of legislation would institute a national moratorium on the death penalty until inmates have had the opportunity to explore potentially exculpatory DNA and other evidence. We must use the power of science to save a life instead of taking it away.

The only way to ensure that innocent people are not being put to death, and that justice, equality, and due process are the law of the land, is to eliminate the death penalty. Even if we take steps to address problems of inadequate representation, lack of access to DNA testing, police misconduct, racial bias and other errors, I don't believe we can craft a full-proof system that guarantees that innocent people won't die. However, I strongly believe that those who commit heinous crimes should spend the rest of their lives in jail without the possibility of parole.

I wish to commend Rob Warden, Larry Marshall, Northwestern University students and others for their dedication and outstanding work to free some of those innocent men who spent years on death row. And I look forward to working with all of you to achieve our goal of a legal system that does not use the death penalty to achieve justice.