Catholics praise death penalty reforms in Illinois

Published: 2003-11-21

CHICAGO (CNS) -- Catholic activists who oppose the death penalty applauded the Illinois Legislature's Nov. 19 approval of a package of reforms designed to reduce the chances of an innocent person being sent to death row. "We're very pleased," said Deacon George Brooks, an anti-death penalty advocate who works with the Kolbe House prison ministry. "But this shouldn't be confused with the idea that it's going to correct all the flaws. It's still a human system, and there will still be human errors," he told The Catholic New World, newspaper of the Chicago Archdiocese. The reform package would, among other things, ban the execution of mentally retarded people; require interrogations in capital cases to be taped; give judges more leeway to overturn a death sentence in cases where they see the sentence as fundamentally unjust; give defendants more opportunity to see evidence that could exonerate them; and eliminate the death penalty as an option in cases that rest on a single eyewitness or a jailhouse informant.

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