And as I prepare to leave the office of governor, I had to ask myself whether I could really live with the prospect of knowing that I had the opportunity to act but that I failed to do so because I might be criticized.

This week, Mamie Till-Mobley died. Her son, Emmett, was lynched in Mississippi in the 1950s. She was a strong advocate for civil rights and reconciliation, and in fact just three weeks ago she was a keynote speaker at the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation right here in Chicago. This group opposes the death penalty even though their family members have been lost to some senseless killings. Mamie's strength and her grace not only ignited the civil rights movement, including inspiring Rosa Parks to refuse to go to the back of the bus, but inspired murder victims until her dying day.

Is our system fair to all? Is justice blind? These are important human rights issues, ones that need answers.

In 1994, near the end of his very distinguished career as a Supreme Court justice of the United States, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote an influential dissent in the body of law on capital punishment. Twenty years earlier, he was part of the court that issued the landmark Furman decision. The court decided that the death penalty statutes in use throughout the country were fraught with severe flaws that rendered them unconstitutional, and quite frankly, they were the same problems that we see right here in Illinois. To many, it looked like the Furman decision meant the end of the death penalty in the United States.

This was not the case. Many states responded to Furman by developing and enhancing new and improved death penalty statutes. And in 1976, four years after it had decided Furman, Justice Blackmun joined the majority of the United States Supreme Court in deciding to give the states a chance with these new and improved death penalty statutes. There was great optimism in the air.

This was the climate in 1977, when the Illinois Legislature was faced with the momentous decision of whether to reinstate the death penalty in Illinois. I was a member of that General Assembly, and I voted in favor of reinstating the death penalty. I did so with the belief that whatever problems that plagued the capital punishment system in the past were now being cured. I'm sure that most of my colleagues who voted with me on that day shared the same view.

But 20 years later, after affirming hundreds of death penalty decisions, Justice Blackmun came to the realization in the twilight of his very distinguished career that the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake. He expressed frustration with the 20-year struggle to develop procedural and substantive safeguards. In a now very famous dissent, he wrote in 1994: "From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."

Our systemic case-by-case review has found more cases of innocent men wrongfully sentenced to death row, and because our three-year study has found only more questions about the fairness of the sentencing, and because of the spectacular failure to reform the system, because we have seen justice delayed for countless death row inmates with potentially meritorious claims, and because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious and therefore immoral, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

I cannot say that as eloquently as Justice Blackmun did, but I've got to tell you:

The Legislature couldn't reform it.

Lawmakers won't repeal it.

And I won't stand for it.

I've been asked why I waited for the last 48 hours before I made this decision. There are a lot of reasons, but one was that I wanted to go as far as I could and learn and know as much as I could. But I also thought that I couldn't leave without getting something done. I had to act.

Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error, error in determining guilt, error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. Because of all of these reasons, I'm commuting the sentence of all death row inmates.

[Applause.] Thank you. As I said earlier, this was a blanket commutation. I realize that my decision will draw ridicule and scorn and anger from many who oppose this decision. And they'll say that I'm usurping the decision of judges and juries and state legislators. But as I have said, the people of our state have invested in me the power to act in the interests of justice. Even if the exercise of my power becomes my burden, I'll bear it.

Our Constitution compels it. I sought this office, and even in my final days of holding it, I can't shrink from the obligations to justice and fairness that it demands. There have been many nights where my staff and I have been deprived of sleep in order to conduct the exhaustive review of this system. But I can tell you this -- I'm going to sleep well tonight, knowing that I made the right decision.

As I said when I declared the moratorium, it's time for a rational discussion on the death penalty. While our experience in Illinois has indeed sparked a debate, we have fallen short of a rational discussion. Yet if I didn't take this action, I feared that there would be no comprehensive and thorough inquiry into the guilt of the individuals on death row or of the fairness of the sentences applied.

To say it plainly one more time -- the Illinois capital punishment system is broken. It has taken innocent men to a hair's-breadth escape from their unjust execution. Legislatures past have refused to fix it. Our new legislature and our new governor must act to rid our state of the shame of threatening the innocent with execution and the guilty with unfairness.

In the days ahead, I'm going pray that we can open our hearts and provide something for victims' families other than the hope of revenge.

You know, Abraham Lincoln was a hell of a guy. He took this state -- and this country -- through the toughest times and the toughest part of our history we've ever known. He was always criticized, the press was always on him. His party was after him all the time. His cabinet was after him. He couldn't do anything right. But he always came up with the right solutions to tough problems. Lincoln once said: "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." I can only hope with God's help that will be so.

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